Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH ALUMINIUM (SALTBURN PIER) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Bill read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Yorkshire and Humberside

Mr. Hardy: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the increase in the numbers of male persons and of juveniles who are unemployed in the Yorkshire and Humberside Region compared with one year ago.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Dudley Smith): At 8th March, 1971 the provisional number of males registered as unemployed in the Yorkshire and Humberside region was 8,258 higher than at 9th March, 1970. The corresponding increase for young persons was 1,313.

Mr. Hardy: Is the Minister aware that, bad as the figures are, a serious increase is likely to occur in the next few weeks in view of recent developments? May I ask the hon. Gentleman what hard action —to use the phrase which the Secretary of State used in the debate last year—he propses to take to improve the very serious situation in the Yorkshire area?

Mr. Smith: As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are three intermediate areas in the region, including that announced on 10th March of Bridlington and Filey. I think that it is true to say that the increase is largely due to the rise in the numbers of those on short time. While this is not satisfactory, it is at least better than their being wholly unemployed.

Rother Valley

Mr. Hardy: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what increase has taken place in male and in juvenile unemployment in the exchange areas of the Rother Valley constituency during the last 12 months.

Mr. Dudley Smith: At 8th March, 1971 the provisional number of males registered as unemployed in the area covered by the Rotherham, Maltby and Dinning-ton Employment Exchange was 268 lower than at 9th March, 1970. The number of young persons was 27 higher.

Mr. Hardy: I thank the Minister for that reply. I was aware of those figures, but obviously the hon. Gentleman has not taken account of the very serious increase in unemployment now occurring in those three exchange areas. Does he recall saying last year that April was a particularly chilly month in the unemployment sense? Will it be even frostier in 1971?

Mr. Smith: We sincerely hope not, because a great deal is being done to try to combat the rise in unemployment. Those are the very latest figures, the figures for March. There has been a fall. That does not mean that the situation is necessarily satisfactory up there, but I am hopeful that it will not become a great deal worse. We shall do all we can to make sure that it does not.

United Kingdom Ports (Productivity)

Mr. James Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the failure of the second stage of the Devlin proposals to produce the productivity figures necessary to maintain United Kingdom ports in full employment and efficiency.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Paul Bryan): Devlin II agreements have been introduced in six major ports, mostly fairly recently. Port employers in five of these claim that the agreements have not adversely affected throughput. In the London Enclosed Docks there has been a fall in the amount of conventional cargo handled, and I am informed that the industry is examining how this position can be improved.

Mr. Hill: I thank my hon. Friend for that statement. Will he confirm that Devlin stage II has been more efficiently implemented by the Southampton Docks and Harbours Board, the employers and the dock employees? Can he give some comparative figures?

Mr. Bryan: Reports from Southampton are certainly good. There is good cooperation, and the traffic is increasing. I see in this morning's Lloyd's List that Mr. Stringer, the dock director, has sent a message to the dock workers and staff saying that 1971 looks like being a record year for the port. Tees-side has also had very good results. I visited there the other day. I cannot give a comparison with all the other ports.

Mr. Heffer: Is the Minister aware that in Liverpool only this week an agreement has been finally reached with the union and the port employers to open the list for further dockers to be taken on, that this process is now going on, and that, I think, 780 new workers will be taken on? Is he also aware that the number of applications was about 3,000 or 4,000—that may be an understatement—owing to the very high unemployment on Merseyside, and that this is obviously the result of Government policy?

Mr. Bryan: I cannot accept that it is the result of Government policy, but it is obviously a disturbing situation. I can only say that my Department has it very much in mind.

Mr. Ogden: Now that the legislative programme of the Minister's Department is a little less, as the Industrial Relations Bill has gone to the other place, will the Minister take the opportunity of asking his right hon. Friend to visit some of the major docks in the weeks ahead? I am certain that Merseyside will give him a sincere, although warm, welcome.

Mr. Bryan: I cannot say that the work ahead is such that my right hon. Friend will be altogether slack, but I know of his very great interest in the ports. As I said, I visited Tees-side two weeks ago. We shall certainly keep our eyes on the situation, both personally and as a Department.

Mr. Rankin: The Question refers to United Kingdom ports. Can the hon. Gentleman say anything about the present position on Clydeside?

Mr. Bryan: I have nothing to report at the minute.

Equal Pay

Mr. Ashley: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is satisfied with the progress being made towards equal pay; and if he will make a statement.

Dr. Summerskill: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what progress has been made with the implemention of the Equal Pay Act; and whether he will make a statement.

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what steps he is taking to keep himself informed of progress towards the implementation of equal pay, preparatory to fulfilling the requirements of Section 9 of the Equal Pay, Act, 1970.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Carr): There has been progress towards equal pay in many industries spread across a wide sector of the economy, I am keeping in touch with progress through the information my Department receives about pay settlements.

Mr. Ashley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been a marked lack of progress towards the achievement of equal pay? The only group of women to achieve it in 1970 were butchers. I appreciate the Government's high regard for butchers, but will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to encourage employers to implement this important principle and consider establishing an intermediate standard to be reached by the end of 1973?

Mr. Carr: Women butchers may be the only women to have achieved equal pay in 1970, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the Act only requires achievement by 1975. The keynote of the Act was that we should make orderly progress towards equal pay. It is too early to consider whether an Order will be needed in 1973, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we want to see the Act implemented and that I will do all I can to ensure that it is implemented smoothly.

Dr. Summerskill: Will the Secretary of State ensure that implementation of the Act is not frustrated by some employers who deliberately segregate women into jobs with abnormally low rates of pay to prevent comparisons being made with men's wages?

Mr. Carr: As the hon. Lady, and the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), know, this is one of the matters to which much thought was given during the debates on the Bill. I cannot compel employers to employ men on certain jobs and not women, or vice versa. But I assure the hon. Lady that we shall keep a close watch on the situation. I do not think we are aware of any signs of that sort of thing happening at the moment, but if they come to notice I should appreciate being told about them.

Mrs. Castle: I appreciate that there are no overt signs that this is happening, but will the Secretary of State take an early opportunity to make a public speech in which he, first, reminds employers of his reserve powers under Section 9 of the Act and, therefore, of the necessity for them to take phased steps towards equal pay in the intervening period, and, secondly, points out to employers that if there is any attempt to bypass or evade the Act in the way mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) the House would welcome amending legislation?

Mr. Carr: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her constructive suggestion. I shall look for such an opportunity, because I want to assure not only the House but the country that we in this Administration intend to ensure that implementation of the Act is pushed forward just as hard as the right hon. Lady would wish.

Mr. John Page: Has my right hon. Friend any evidence of "Heffers" being disposed of by women butchers?

Mr. Carr: That would require an independent inquiry of a very deep nature and I should have great trouble in finding the necessary equivalent of Lord Wilberforce to chair it.

Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal (Chairman)

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received following the decision not to reappoint Professor Hugh Clegg as Chairman of the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal; and what replies he has sent.

Mr. R. Carr: Representations have been made by the Staff Side of the Civil Service National Whitley Council and by some Civil Service Unions. These have raised a number of points to which I have given individual replies.

Mr. Molloy: I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. Will he take full cognisance of what it means when the national Staff Side makes its representations? Does he not think that it would be in the interests of the Staff Side and everyone else if he were to reappoint Professor Clegg? Will he use his good offices to stop the Government loading the dice in the manner that they have done on industrial relations?

Mr. Carr: I do not accept for a moment the implications in the last part of the supplementary question. The Question is about reappointment, and reappointments are always open. We must put this the other way round for a moment and wonder what the Staff Side would have said had the independent Chairman accepted nomination as an employers' representative on a court. There is no slight on Pressor Clegg's integrity, but if one takes on a job which is judicial in nature one must, however reluctantly, refrain from doing things which otherwise one would have done quite properly.

Computers

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what proposals he has for the use of computers in his Department.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department (Mr. David Howell): The Department already uses computers for the compilation and processing of statistics, for the staff payroll, for making repayments of selective employment tax, and to a limited extent


for compiling lists of vacancies. Consideration is being given to using computers to assist the employment service more widely but no decisions have been taken.

Mr. Huckfield: I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for that information. What proposals does his Department have for the computerisation of more personal information, particularly in matching vacancies with applicants? Furthermore, what track is his Department keeping of the computerised personal information services now being built up on personnel by many big British companies?

Mr. Howell: Since the autumn of 1970, lists of vacancies in the London area have been compiled by computer and circulated to employment exchanges in the London area. Arrangements have just been made to begin compiling a similar list of skilled vacancies nationwide, particularly to help with the Rolls-Royce situation. The question of personal information compiled by private firms raises broader issues which perhaps would be better touched on when we reach Question No. 8.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what proposals he has for the maintenance and preservation of accepted standards of confidentiality of personal information data stored on computers in his Departments.

Mr. David Howell: All personal information held by the Department, whether clerically or on computers, is treated as confidential and computer staff have recently been reminded of this. As an additional precaution, personal information stored in computers in the Department, except for the payroll records of staff, excludes the name of the person concerned, and the documents giving this information are held under separate control.

Mr. Huckfield: I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for that information, but is he aware that those safeguards will not particularly enthuse or fool anybody? Is he aware that under the proposals in the Industrial Relations Bill personal information, particularly on

militants' activities, will become a very valuable commodity? There is the real prospect of factory spies increasing in number. Already two or three private information firms offer spy and espionage services on the factory floor. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that the arrangements he has made will be adequate, because I am not?

Mr. Howell: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's dramatised version of what will flow from the Industrial Relations Bill. On the question of confidentiality, I am aware of his very close and expert interest in this matter, and I confirm that the Government take it extremely seriously. The safeguards are very stringent. As I said, personal information on people is held under separate control, and anonymity is preserved in any information going out from the Department.

Mr. David Stoddart: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that this matter is giving a great deal of concern to many people? With the growth of terminal units, as I believe they are called in computer work, it is possible for people to get extremely confidential information. I should like an assurance that the hon. Gentleman's Department is using a proper key system so that only people entitled to the information can get it.

Mr. Howell: I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that very high standards of confidentiality are observed. The Government recognise the strength of feeling on this very serious and important matter. In that light, the Government have said that they will take note of the recommendations of the Younger Committee and they have decided to carry out a major study which was initiated by a questionnaire going out from the Civil Service Department to ascertain all aspects of information held in Government Departments so that action can be taken.

Mr. Heffer: To return to the point made by my hon. Friend in relation to spying in industry, the right hon. Gentleman himself at one time was associated with a firm which offered services which implied spying in factories. Will the hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that this sort of activity will most certainly be discouraged by the Government,


and will he urge employers to refuse to use the services of such organisations?

Mr. Howell: I do not think that these implications arise on this Question at all, nor do the propositions that the hon. Member raised about the Industrial Relations Bill. These matters simply do not arise, and I do not think it necessary to give an assurance on matters which have been asked on questions which do not arise.

Mr. R. Carr: On a point of order. Since the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. Heffer) made a remark concerning me, should I be in order in giving an explanation about it? The implication is serious, and it happens to be seriously untrue.

Mr. Speaker: If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to develop that point of order further I would rather that he did it at the end of Questions.

Later—

Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During Questions to the Department of Employment, the Secretary of State said that he would raise on a point of order later a matter to which I had referred. Are we to have that point of order, is this the time for it, at the end of Questions, or does it come after the business questions?

Mr. Speaker: Whether a right hon. or hon. Member raises a matter on a point of order is entirely for that Member. All the Chair can do is to suggest, with respect, that points of order are better not raised during Question Time.

Mr. Carr: As the hon. Gentleman has referred to that matter again, may I be allowed to raise with you, Mr. Speaker, the point on which I sought your guidance at the time?
In the course of a supplementary question to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Gentleman referred to what he described as spying activities in industry, or industrial espionage—I forget the exact words—[HON. MEMBERS: "Spying."]—in industry alleged to be carried on by a company of which I was at one time a director. He gave me no notice of that charge, and I have not, therefore, the documentation with me, but, as this is a canard which has been raised a number of times

over recent years in certain documents published by the Labour Research Department, I should like to speak from my memory of the matter and express the facts briefly as I recall them. I feel that I am entitled to do that, Sir.
It is true that I was a director of the company called Securicor, and an executive of a subsidiary of that company, without authority, did offer a service which appeared to approximate to the undesirable kind of service to which the hon. Gentleman referred. The moment that service came to the notice of the board, the service was immediately withdrawn and the executive concerned, who had acted without authority, was disciplined.

Mr. Heffer: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Hon. Members: Withdraw!

Mr. Heffer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the right hon. Gentleman feels aggrieved that I had not given him notice, I apologise. All I did was to refer to the fact that there was, or had been, an organisation, which supplied or suggested supplying, this type of spying service—an organisation with which the right hon. Gentleman had been associated in the past, and I asked for an assurance from the Government that they would discourage such activities on the part of any organisation in the future, particularly as spying could well become an important part of the industrial relations scene.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the matter has now been disposed of.

Mr. John Wells: Disgraceful.

Commission for Industrial Relations

Mr. Harold Walker: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will now make a statement about the future size and membership of the Commission for Industrial Relations.

Mr. R. Carr: It is my intention by new appointments to ensure that the Commission will be fully enabled to continue its work in the reform of industrial relations and to meet the important new tasks it will have in the future.
At the same time, I have to tell the House with regret that Mr. George


Woodcock has today announced his intention of resigning as Chairman in the near future. I take this opportunity of paying tribute to the valuable work he has done.

Mr. Walker: Is it not now absolutely clear that the first victim of the Industrial Relations Bill is the C.I.R., to which the whole country was attaching so much hope as a valuable instrument for bringing about long-overdue improvements in our industrial relations? Is it not also clear, in view of the resignations, that the right hon. Gentleman has little hope of restoring the credibility of the C.I.R. so long as the Industrial Relations Bill is going through? Will not the C.I.R. now be a lame duck?

Mr. Carr: I note with some distress, as I think the country will, the pleasure and in fact the laughter with which the benches opposite received that news. I hardly think it a responsible reaction. Mr. Woodcock has said, in his statement accompanying his letter of resignation, that, although he had long made clear his disagreement with the proposed legislative approach to the reform of industrial relations—a disagreement which he had with the right hon. Lady's Government as much as with mine—he had felt—

An. Hon. Member: It is not in the letter.

Mr. Carr: I am not saying that it is.

An Hon. Member: You are dodging about.

Mr. Carr: If the hon. Gentleman thinks that what Mr. Woodcock has to say is dodging about, he is entitled to his opinion.

Mr. Carter: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is a much earlier point of order. All remarks are directed to the Chair, and I am not aware that I was dodging about. I will not have that sort of thing said.

Mr. Carr: Mr. Woodcock made clear in his letter that, although he had long expressed his disagreement with the proposed legislative approach to the reform of industrial relations, he had felt that it would still be possible under the Bill for the Commission to pursue effectively its work for the voluntary improvement of

industrial relations. He has, however, been forced to conclude that this will not be possible under the decision of the Special Congress of the T.U.C. which required all affiliated unions to withdraw their co-operation. Mr. Woodcock has made it quite clear that it is the decision of the T.U.C. and not the Bill which has been the cause of his decision.

Mr. Carter: On a point of order. Would it not have been far more appropriate for the Secretary of State to have made a statement after Question Time today instead of using up our Question Time in delivering it?

Mr. Speaker: I have no responsibility for answers.

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my hon. Friend has a valid point, and that the information extracted from the right hon. Gentleman by the Question is of great relevance, both to the debates and decisions of yesterday and to the implications of the future working of the Bill? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House when he received George Woodcock's letter, and when George Woodcock informed him that he wanted to resign?

Mr. Carr: I was informed this morning by Mr. Woodcock. The letter was sent by hand to the Prime Minister—the Commission being a Royal Commission, that is the proper form—with a copy to me, this morning. It seemed to me, as I had this Question to answer, that this was the first opportunity and the proper way of announcing it.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we on this side of the House regret the decision taken by Mr. George Woodcock to resign, and the reasons for it. Will he accept our assurance that we wish to see the Commission grow from strength to strength to bring about better industrial relations?

Mr. Can: I assure my hon. Friend that this is the case. He might also like to know that Mr. Woodcock in his statement has expressed his belief that eventually the C.I.R. will again be widely accepted as a body. It might also interest the right hon. Lady, her hon. Friends and the whole House to know that in his statement he says—

Hon. Members: Too long.

Mr. Freeson: On a point of order. Is it not an abuse of the procedure of the House for this information to be given by the Minister in this bedraggled "bits-and-pieces" fashion? Would it not have been far more appropriate for the Minister to have made a statement to the House in which he could have given us all the information he wished to give us on this point?

Mr. Speaker: These are not points of order. Things which hon. Members shout from sedentary positions are directed to the Chair, whatever they may think. I suggest that we can move on quickly to the next Question.

Mrs. Castle: Further to that point of order. Is there not a rule of the House that any document which is quoted must be laid before the House?

Mr. Speaker: I want to know exactly what the document is and to study the references made to it. I will certainly rule on it when I know what the document is and the circumstances, but I will not rule on it on the spur of the moment.

Mr. Carr: Should I be in order, Mr. Speaker, in making clear that Mr. Woodcock will make this document public—I believe that he is holding a Press conference later this afternoon, but that is his affair—and that he specifically gave me his permission to quote from it this afternoon if I were asked?

Industrial Relations Bill (Protest Strikes)

Mr. Harold Walker: asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many days' production have been lost by strikes in protest against the introduction of the Industrial Relations Bill.

Mr. John Page: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement about the strikes called or proposed by certain trade unions against the Industrial Relations Bill on 1st and 18th March.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what estimate of the cost to the economy he has made of the one-day strike by the Amalgamated Engineering and Foundry-workers Union which took place on 1st March.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many people were on strike on Monday 1st March and again on 18th March in protest against the Industrial Relations Bill, how many turned up to work in factories which were unable to start production and were paid datal rates; how many were locked out by their employers because of inability to start production; how many companies were involved; and how many agreements were broken.

Mr. James Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the estimated number of days lost this year through strikes called in protest against the Industrial Relations Bill.

Mr. David Mitchell: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is his estimate of the number of working days lost in strikes during 1971 where the cause of strike action was attached to political objection to the Industrial Relations Bill.

Mr. R. Carr: Just over three million man-days have been lost in one-day strikes, including 1·2 million on 1st March and 1·26 million on 18th March. It is not possible to estimate the cost of these strikes or how many other employees were prevented from working by them.

Mr. Walker: Is it not an extraordinary indictment of a Measure which is put to the country as being designed to bring about an improvement in industrial relations that, before it gets on the Statute Book, it is itself directly responsible for losing almost as much production time as we should lose in the course of a normal year?

Mr. Carr: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should ask that question, in view of the part which his union played in calling this political strike.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to follow the usual practice of first calling to ask supplementaries hon. Members who have put down Questions.

Mr. Page: Does my right hon. Friend agree that many reasonable trade unionists must have gone on strike because they were hoodwinked by the misrepresentations of the Bill presented


to them by right hon. and hon. Members opposite?

Mr. Carr: I believe that that was one factor. I also believe, and on accumulated evidence, that many people went on strike unwillingly.

Mr. Lewis: Will my right hon. Friend tell us exactly what will be the effect on exports of these two strikes?

Mr. Carr: No. It is impossible to quantify. It will be of interest to the House to know, however, that the engineering Employers' Federation, which represents the industry most seriously affected, estimates that on the first of the two days, namely, 1st March, some 80 per cent. of its 4,500 member firms were affected and lost output to the value of approximately £70 million. One must presume that at least the equivalent happened on 18th March. The engineering industry includes our most important export industries.

Mr. Osborn: Will my right hon. Friend tell us what were the consequential layoffs as a result of the strike, which was for political motives, and what was the adverse effect on cash flow, therefore undermining the security of future employment?

Mr. Carr: As to the numbers who did not work, I cannot give a better estimate than the three million man-days lost which I gave in my original answer. This, of course, is no more than an estimate.
The effect on cash flow, too, must have been serious, but it is equally impossible to estimate.

Mr. Hill: Does my right hon. Friend agree that this form of strike is adequately covered by the Industrial Relations Bill and that it shows only too clearly how a militant minority could bring this country to its knees?

Mr. Carr: I very much hope that we have now heard the last of political strikes of this character. I am encouraged at least by this part of the T.U.C's. recommendations of last week.

Mr. Mitchell: Is my right hon. Friend able to advise the House whether these politically motivated strikes are lawful under existing legislation? If not, am I right in assuming that there is a right of redress for those who have been victim-

ised and disciplined by their unions for working?

Mr. Carr: The power of a trade union to discipline its members derives from its rules. Whether a particular strike is an industrial dispute or a political act and whether, and if so to what extent, the rules apply if it is a political act are matters which can be decided only by the courts. Any members of unions who feel aggrieved will be well advised to seek legal advice.

Mr. Bidwell: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, according to his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, in answer to a contribution made by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), it is quite plain that a purely political strike is outside the scope of the Bill? Does he further agree that if workers are prevented from having the cherished freedom to strike in normal circumstances, we might see a growth of political strikes as opposed to those which arise from industrial disputes proper?

Mr. Carr: That would not make political strikes lawful. Certainly the Bill does nothing to do so. But whether a strike is or is not political and what follows from it is, as I said, a matter which can be determined only by the courts.

Disabled Persons

Mr. Farr: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will take further steps to assist registered disabled persons in their search for work.

Mr. Dudley Smith: As the full reply is necessarily lengthy, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
However, I can tell my hon. Friend now that a steady increase is being made in the provision of sheltered employment and rehabilitation and training facilities and special steps are currently being taken to look more closely at the position in larger firms below quota.

Mr. Farr: This statement will be widely welcomed in the country because such persons already face grave difficulties. Is my hon. Friend aware, for instance, that all too often today the production of a disabled person's card to a prospective employer at the same time


coincides with a marked lack of interest by the employer in the applicant?

Mr. Smith: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. I have recently approached the Rotary International, British Junior Chamber of Commerce and Round Table leaders, and I am having a conference with them to try to encourage them to get the attitude of individual employers to change where it needs to be changed.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we shall read the full text of his answer with close interest? Will the hon. Gentleman tell us the current level of unemployment among employable disabled people? Moreover, will he tell us how soon he expects the steps which he has announced today to have an improving effect on that position?

Mr. Smith: No one would pretend that this will be an overnight improvement. It is a difficult problem. The current unemployment rate among the disabled is 12·5 per cent., but it has always been higher than the national average of ordinary unemployment because of the extra difficulties. In some ways the figures are a bit illusory, because not every disabled person is on the register. People tend to go on it only when they lose their employment. I am hopeful that our measures will be a contribution. We also had a fundamental review within the Department to see whether we can bring about any other improvements.

Mr. Ashley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the House will warmly appreciate the steps which he is taking to make genuine improvements in the situation? Nevertheless, the trend is increasingly bad for disabled workers over a long period. Will he therefore, without making a specific commitment now, consider a thorough-going inquiry into the whole question of the employment of disabled workers?

Mr. Smith: Yes. That is why the Department is looking into the question very seriously. It is, as I said, a very difficult problem. When the national unemployment rate is high, it becomes more difficult for the disabled. However, I am hopeful that the measures which I have announced today will make some improvement in the situation.

Mr. Freeson: Will the hon. Gentleman undertake to consult his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment with a view to encouraging local authorities which have empty factories within their areas to take them over, by purchase, to establish a much larger and wider range of sheltered workship facilities for the disabled than exist now?

Mr. Smith: I am not sure that that necessarily would achieve the desired end, but I will look into the matter and perhaps I can write to the hon. Gentleman about it.
Following is the information:
We have been considering what specific measures we can take in present circumstances to ensure that everything possible is being done to help those disabled people who are unable to find work.
It is only recently that the Disablement Resettlement Officer service has been re-organised and strengthened and it is as yet too early for the full effects to be felt. But the preliminary indications are that the changes have improved the effectiveness of the service and we expect this will be increasingly confirmed as further experience is gained of the revised set-up. Even in the present difficult condition the Disablement Resettlement Officers continue to find jobs for about 70,000 disabled people a year.
In this field, much depends on the attitude of individual employers. I am sure there is much good will but we need them to make a special effort. That is why I have approached Rotary International, the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Round Table seeking their help in stimulating further local action in areas where the problems are greatest. I am hopeful that this will produce results.
Arrangements have been made to put greater emphasis than previously on formal inspections of employers' records as against informal visits. I am also taking steps to look more closely at the position of large employers who are below quota. We want to ensure that opportunities for employing disabled workers are not being overlooked.
My Department has set in hand a fundamental review of its services for the disabled. When this is completed we shall decide whether any revision of the present machinery is needed.
A steady increase is being made in the provisions of sheltered employment, industrial rehabilitation and in the training facilities available to the disabled. More than half the disabled persons currently unemployed are over 50, and we hope to help some of them through the scheme recently introduced in Development and Intermediate Areas under which employers may receive grants for re-training older unemployed workers who are engaged for permanent jobs. 1 am ensuring that disability is taken sympathetically into account in fixing the period of grant. We are also urging Disablement Resettlement Officers to make greater use of the arrangements, available in all areas, under which disabled persons may be trained with employers in semi-skilled trades at Government expense.

Industrial Relations Bill (Advice)

Mr. Eadie: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what advice he is now issuing to employer organisations regarding the position when the Industrial Relations Bill becomes law.

Mr. Dudley Smith: My right hon. Friend is issuing no formal advice at present, but he intends to publish a guide to the Bill when it becomes law.

Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman must be well aware that a new situation has arisen unexpectedly from the Government's point of view—namely, that quite a number of employers have given a cooler reception to the Bill than was probably expected. How do the Government propose to deal with this situation?

Mr. Smith: I do not accept that for a moment. In fact, I believe that, on the whole, the reception has been extraordinarily good. I am encouraged to find how well many managers understand the provisions of the Bill. I believe that it would have been even more widely understood by individual employees if we had not had such an expensive campaign of misrepresentation directed against it.

Mr. Fell: Is my hon. Friend aware that the suggestion is being put round the workshop floors of Britain—I have proof of this in Great Yarmouth—that redundancy payments will cease with the introduction of the Bill?

Mr. Smith: I should be very pleased to have that evidence from my hon. Friend. If he will let me have it, we will go into it, because there is no foundation whatever for such a suggestion.

Lanarkshire

Mr. James Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what estimate he has made of the number of jobs that are required in the Lanarkshire area to bring down the number of unemployed to the national average.

Mr. Dudley Smith: It is not my Department's practice to make estimates of this kind. My right hon. Friends are however very much aware of the need to increase employment in Lanarkshire.

Mr. Hamilton: Will the hon. Gentleman make some efforts as a Minister? The figures which prevail at present do not give the true picture, since many of the redundancies declared for Lanarkshire have not yet borne fruit, and this will drastically increase the numbers. Is he aware that we have an advance factory in Lanarkshire which is still lying without a tenant, that the Lanarkshire people are now firmly convinced that we are moving back to the Hungry Thirties, and that, unless the Government are prepared to do something, they will take the law into their own hands?

Mr. Dudley Smith: If they think that —I do not necessarily accept that they do—they are wrong, because most of Lanarkshire is a special development area, attracting all the benefits of that status which can come forward. I know that the situation is difficult in Lanarkshire, as it is generally in Scotland. That is why the Government are taking these actions and pursuing policies which we hope, in the long term—and perhaps not too much in the long term—will have an effect on the unemployment situation.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that we are concerned not only to attract new jobs, as we did in the last six years, but to keep the jobs which we already have? Would he therefore use his good offices with the British Steel Corporation to ensure that its rationalisation plans are such that the jobs which we presently


have in Lanarkshire steel mills are retained in Scotland, and that as many as possible are retained in Lanarkshire?

Mr. Smith: As the hon. Gentleman knows, steel rationalisation is not a matter for me, but I take his point and will see that it is drawn to the attention of those responsible.

Rolls-Royce, Limited

Mr. James Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he can now give the number of apprentices who will become redundant with Rolls-Royce Limited; and what plans he has to allow them to continue with their apprenticeship.

Mr. Bryan: I understand it is unlikely that there will be apprentices among the Rolls-Royce redundancies announced on 8th March. My Department and the Engineering Industry Training Board will do their best to help any future redundant apprentices to continue their training by placing them with other firms.

Mr. Hamilton: I sincerely thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply, but if, by some misfortune, any of these lads become redundant, will he ensure that they are fully assisted in carrying out their trade in our training centres?

Mr. Bryan: On future redundancies, of course, the full resources of my Department are being made available to assist employees who become redundant. With regard to apprentices, my Department is certainly in touch with the situation and is standing by to see what may be required in future, if anything further is required. I was on the telephone this morning to the E.I.T.B. and they told me that they are willing to take any first-year apprentices on to their own payroll. We shall see how much further we can go if it is required.

Mr. Douglas: I echo my hon. Friend's thanks to the Minister. The present is covered, but would he accept that the future of engineering apprenticeships in Scotland is very important? Would he do his utmost to ensure that other industrialists are persuaded to take on more than their normal quota of apprentices, to ensure that the erosion of skill in Scotland is not continued?

Mr. Bryan: I said that we are keeping in touch with the situation, and I get the impression that employers and the training board and all concerned very much agree with what the hon. Member said. We shall certainly do our very best.

Demarcation and Inter-Union Disputes

Mr. Adam Butler: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what proportion of strikes in 1970 was due to demarcation or similar inter-union disputes; and how this figure compares with previous years.

Mr. Bryan: Figures are compiled for demarcation disputes as a whole but not separately for inter-union disputes. Complete analyses for 1970 showing the cause of stoppage are not yet available; they are due to be published in the May issue of the Department's Gazette.

Mr. Butler: Is my hon. Friend aware that there has been a diminution of this type of dispute over the past few years, and that much of that is due to the work of the T.U.C.? But would he not agree also that a reduction in the number of unions would be helpful to a further reduction in this type of dispute? What steps can his Department take, either directly or indirectly, to bring that about?

Mr. Bryan: The general process of amalgamation has gone on over the years, but probably more important is that the unions should be of a sufficient size to meet the needs of their members. I would certainly agree with my hon. Friend. I think that all hon. Members would want to acknowledge the role of the T.U.C. in inter-union disputes. The Bridlington Agreement of the T.U.C. and the T.U.C. constitution provide for action on all kinds of disputes between affiliated unions. The Government certainly want that there.

Mrs. Castle: But is the hon. Gentleman aware that it was just because of the increasing effectiveness of the T.U.C. in dealing with inter-union disputes that the proposals in "In Place Of Strife" for other methods of dealing with them were dropped?

Mr. Bryan: Despite what the right hon. Lady said, the efforts of the T.U.C. are clearly inadequate when one sees what


has occurred. That is why we have introduced a Bill which will improve the position.

Oral Answers to Questions — INVESTMENT

Mr. Ashley: asked the Prime Minister how many representations have been made to him since 1st January regarding the level of investment.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I have discussed the economic situation, including the level of investment, with a wide variety of organisations and individuals, including the C.B.I., the T.U.C. and the Scottish T.U.C.

Mr. Ashley: Does the Prime Minister believe that the present fall in investment is due to lack of funds or lack of confidence in the Government? Will he assure us that he will take urgent action to ensure that the present low rate of investment and the alarming trend does not spiral downward into a recession?

The Prime Minister: We are certainly very much concerned with the level of investment, but when the hon. Member says that it has fallen, I would point out that the White Paper published earlier today on National Income and Balance of Payments shows that, after a fall in the first half of 1970, total fixed capital formation recovered in the second half of 1970 to a level slightly above that of a year earlier.

Oral Answers to Questions — T.U.C. AND C.B.I. (PRIME MINISTERS' TALKS)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent talks with representatives of the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry.

Mr. Archer: asked the Prime Minister what approaches for talks on economic policy he has had recently from the Trades Union Congress; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Skinner: asked the Prime Minister what approach he has received from the Trades Union Congress for a meeting with him to discuss economic policies; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the meeting he has had with Trades Union Congress leaders on the economic situation.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement about his talks with the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Members to the answer I gave to a similar Question from the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) on 16th March.—[Vol. 813, c. 297–8.]

Mr. Hamilton: I cannot readily recollect that answer. Did the Prime Minister convince the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. that the Government were getting on top of inflation? If he did, can he bring the House into his confidence and tell us what the evidence is that the Government are doing what they said they would do in this matter?

The Prime Minister: It is fair to say, I think, that there was general agreement among the members of the C.B.I., the T.U.C. and the Scottish T.U.C. that the escalation in wage awards had ceased, that the level had evened out and that there were signs that the level was coming down. This was not a matter of dispute between us.

Mr. Archer: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that he cannot have it both ways—that he cannot ask for the co-operation of the trade unions while at the same time acting as spokesman of the union-bashing elements who composed the Conservative election manifesto? As an earnest of his readiness to negotiate, would he agree that, whatever the future course of the Industrial Relations Bill, the question whether the provisions of Clause 151 will be implemented is still open to negotiation with the T.U.C.?

The Prime Minister: In the talks which I have had with both the T.U.C. and the Scottish T.U.C., the question of the Industrial Relations Bill has not been raised. The T.U.C. and the Scottish T.U.C. were perfectly prepared to discuss economic questions quite separately from the Bill. I naturally hope that there


will be co-operation from the T.U.C. as well as from the C.B.I. in operating the Bill. It is a decision for them to take.

Mr. Skinner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, a few months ago, he told the House that there were many moderate union leaders who were prepared to accept the Tory reforms in the Industrial Relations Bill? Now that he has met the T.U.C. leaders, will he either name a few, and, if he cannot, will he withdraw that disgraceful and utterly misleading statement?

The Prime Minister: All the indications are, publicly, that what I said was true, which was that a very large majority of trade unionists themselves wanted the reform of industrial relations. That is still the case. As for the moderate union leaders, when the Bill becomes an Act, as it will in this Session, then we shall see.

Mr. Sheldon: As the level of 800,000 unemployed is costing the country annually an amount in excess of £1,000 million a year in lost production, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is sure that his policies are worth the squandering of such vast resources?

The Prime Minister: To begin with, I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's figures. As for the point he raises about unemployment, as soon as we can have an expanding economy, with a reasonable rate of growth which is not being overrun by inflationary wage claims, then, of course, the unemployment figures will go down.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am pursuing the usual practice of calling hon. Members whose Questions are being answered together.

Mr. Davidson: Did not the Prime Minister form the impression from his meetings with leaders of the T.U.C. that they were deeply, genuinely and sincerely concerned about the intolerable level of unemployment in this country? If he did form that impression, will he use all the influence he has with some of the more mindless of his supporters to stop their malicious attacks on the trade union movement, in which they suggest that all the economic troubles of the nation are

the fault of the trade union movement, when the right hon. Gentleman knows full well that he and the Government must bear a large share of the responsibility?

The Prime Minister: I have not for one moment questioned the sincerity and genuine nature of the T.U.C.'s concern about the wide range of problems which we discussed at the two meetings I had with the T.U.C. and the Scottish T.U.C. In addition to the question of unemployment, we discussed, among other things, investment, exports, the social services and the arrangements which may be made for them.
My answer to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is that nobody has ever attributed the economic problems of this country solely to inflationary wage demands. However, I have asked hon. Gentlemen opposite from time to time to give full weight to this factor.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is it not significant that in winding up the debate in the House last night on behalf of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) made it absolutely clear that the Labour Party accepted no commitment to repeal the Industrial Relations Bill should they ever get back to office?

The Prime Minister: That was an encouraging statement in itself. It remains to be seen, of course, how much influence the right hon. Member for Sowerby has or continues to have—or even how much influence the Leader of the Opposition has or continues to have—on his party.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: In view of his answer to the first supplementary question on this matter, does the Prime Minister believe that the rate of price increase will be less in 1971 than in 1970?

The Prime Minister: That will, of course, depend on a considerable number of factors—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] —and, as I have always told the right hon. Gentleman, I do not make prognostications of that kind. I will judge on the results.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: In the course of his discussions with trade union leaders,


in particular with Mr. Scanlon and Mr. Jones, did my right hon. Friend discuss the way in which strikes like the present strike at Ford are subsidised through the supplementary benefits system by the taxpayer, a subsidy which in that case must now be costing over £500,000?

The Prime Minister: I did not discuss the details of this dispute at Ford at that meeting or at the other meetings I had with the T.U.C. and other trade unionists. Nor did I discuss the question of supplementary benefits as far as strikes are concerned. However, there was an opportunity of dealing with problems caused by industrial unrest in some of the major companies in this country, particularly as there was present a most distinguished American trade unionist in whose industry there is a three-year agreement or enforceable contract which gives companies in the United States a three-year period of industrial peace to carry out their plans.

Mr. Atkinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that from an 11 per cent. wage award must be deducted at least 3 per cent. to cover increased taxation ands National Insurance contributions, leaving perhaps 8 per cent.? Does he appreciate, therefore, that if the price index rises by 8 per cent. a year, the average wage award must be of 11 per cent. simply to enable one to stand still? Is it not odd that at a time when the Government are enjoying the biggest balance-of-payments surplus in our history, they should be calling on British workers to take a reduction in living standards by accepting wage awards of less than 11 per cent.?

The Prime Minister: I cannot accept that at all, particularly as one of our first measures was to reduce direct taxation, a reduction which will become effective next month, and, at the same time, to raise the limits of exemption for social service charges, If the hon. Gentleman wants to use statistics to prove his case, he must get them right.

Mr. Rost: As the Industrial Relations Bill was given a Third Reading by a large majority, and in view of the condemnation of one-day political strikes by the Leader of the Opposition and the T.U.C., may we have an assurance from the Leader of the Opposition that he

will discipline those of his hon. Friends who are continuing to encourage political strikes against the Industrial Relations Bill against the national interest?

The Prime Minister: It is up to the Leader of the Opposition to re-establish control over his party.

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Harold Wilson: I intend to answer. However, my supplementary question—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] —I was about to say that my supplementary question was going to be different, but I will answer the point made by the Prime Minister and then ask him a question, with your forbearance, Mr. Speaker.
In view of the right hon. Gentleman's failure throughout his years in opposition ever to condemn wildcat speculation against the £ by his own friends, will he now note that this Opposition has at least come out flat against political strikes?
In view of his surprising coyness in refusing to answer the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) about price prognostications, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to recall, in view of his recollection, the inaccurate forecasts of unemployment which he used to make under a Labour Government? Will he now tell us what level of unemployment he expects to see next winter?

The Prime Minister: No more than the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to do.
My answer to the first part of his supplementary question is that as the right hon. Gentleman was finally forced by questions in this House to state that it was not possible in this country to speculate against sterling, and as his usual cries attributing every crisis to speculation in sterling were falsified, it was not necessary for me to condemn it. However, publicly and privately I supported sterling both inside and outside the House—

Mr. Harold Wilson: Oh dear!

The Prime Minister: —even beyond the point at which his Chancellor of the Exchequer had already decided to devalue.

Oral Answers to Questions — ECONOMIC POLICIES (DEPARTMENTAL CO-ORDINATION)

Q.3. Mr. Barnett: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Treasury and the Departments of Trade and Industry, Aviation Supply and Employment in the implementation of the Government's economic policies; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Arrangements already exist for close co-ordination between all Departments concerned with economic policy.

Mr. Barnett: While wishing well to the negotiations which are at present going on in Washington over the Rolls-Royce affair, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is satisfied with the handling of this affair by the Minister of Aviation Supply, bearing in mind that the net result seems likely to be the saving of Lockheed from bankruptcy while the Government are not prepared to put up one penny to save British subcontractors from the same fate?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman should not prejudge the results of the negotiations.

Mr. Rose: In view of the large-scale redundancies, not only at Rolls-Royce but at Hawker Siddeley and other factories, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to say what special facilities will be made available to help skilled workers into other employment and what additional industrial training will be provided for those who do not already have skills?

The Prime Minister: Special arrangements have already been announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. If, however, the hon. Gentleman requires further information, perhaps he will table a Question on the subject to him.

Mr. Dalyell: What exactly do the Government mean by saying that they have no control over the Receiver?

The Prime Minister: The Receiver is appointed by the debenture holders to be their representative and is an independent person.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Does my right hon. Friend recall that 2,600 redundancies at

A. V. Roe in the North-West of England were due entirely to the cancellation of the TSR2 and the purchase of American fighter aircraft, which put my constituents out of work?

The Prime Minister: That was a consequence of the Labour Government's policy.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. John Fraser: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware that we reached only No. 15 in Questions to the Department of Employment today. From the copious quotation and slow diction of the Secretary of State, there appeared to be a deliberate attempt to avoid Question No. 16, which would have revealed a 29 per cent. rise in unemployment since June.
As one is now asked to put down Questions on the subject, and, naturally, one does so, can you, Mr. Speaker, do what you can to follow the practice of your predecessor in trying to hurry along our proceedings at Question Time? One understands how difficult it is, but it is extremely frustrating when one cannot question the Government on the charlatanry of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Speaker: So far as that is a point of order, certainly the Chair is only too anxious to co-operate with hon. Members. As a matter of accuracy, Ministers did answer 21 Questions, I think, because several others were taken at the same time as earlier ones. But I am entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and I shall gladly accept his help and that of other hon. Members in hurrying Questions along.

Mr. Rose: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In reply to my question, the Prime Minister hid behind the suggestion that a Question could be put down to the Secretary of State for Employment. A Question was put down. It was not reached. Is it in order, therefore, for the Prime Minister to refer to a Question in that way when it was not possible to put such a Question to the Secretary of State for Employment?

Mr. Speaker: That is a comment. It is not a point of order.

Mr. Ashton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that Question No. 11 took 11 minutes to answer because the Secretary of State insisted on making a statement about the resignation of Mr. George Woodcock from the C.I.R.? Two weeks ago when the Secretary of State for Social Services wished to make a statement about smoking he asked that a Question put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) should be taken at 3.30. Would it not have been more in order for the Secretary of State for Employment to have taken a similar course and asked to make a statement at 3.30 on such an important controversial issue?

Mr. Speaker: These are interesting comments. They are not points of order.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Harold Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 29TH MARCH—Remaining stages of the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill.
Second Reading of the Civil Aviation Bill.

Motions on the Mines and Quarries (Valuation) Order and on the Docks and Harbours (Valuation) Order.

TUESDAY, 30TH MARCH—My right hon.Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget.

Motions on the Transitional Relief Orders and on the Double Taxation Relief Orders.

At Seven o'clock, the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed Private Business for consideration.

WEDNESDAY, 31ST MARCH—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Motions on the Cereals (Guarantee Payments) and (Protection of Guarantees) Orders.

THURSDAY, 1ST APRIL—Continuation of the Budget debate.

Motion on the Police Pensions (Amendment) Regulations.

FRIDAY, 2ND APRIL—Private Members' Bills.

MONDAY, 5TH APRIL—Conclusion of the debate on the Budget statement.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that at some time next week, as soon as the negotiations over the RB211 are over, there will be an early statement to the House, and will he ensure that the Minister making that statement tells us also what we may expect, in the form of a White Paper, a Select Committee, or both, so that the House may go into the whole unhappy history of this affair?

Mr. John Wells: Unhappy under the Labour Government.

Mr. Wilson: I referred last week to the record of both Governments. If the hon. Gentleman would pick up his apple and stop playing "footie-footie" with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Michael Cocks), he might learn a little more and help the proceedings of the House.
Second, will the right hon. Gentleman put it to his right hon. Friends that if they have a personal statement to make, whether in response to a point of order raised by another hon. Member or at their own wish, the best thing is to make a personal statement at the proper time, because it can create difficulty if it is followed by further points of order, especially as we are then engaged on what is an important part of the Question Time of the House?

Mr. Whitelaw: My answer to the right hon. Gentleman's first point is, "Yes, certainly". Of course, at the conclusion of negotiations a statement will be made. I note the right hon. Gentleman's other points, and entirely agree with him on his second. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment asked me if he should say anything at the end of Questions and before business questions. My answer was that he should not, because I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman's view. But when my right hon. Friend was challenged by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton


(Mr. Heller) a somewhat different situation arose. I hope that we can proceed in the way suggested by the right hon. Gentleman in the future.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: My right hon. Friend will recall that a little time ago he indicated his intention to make a statement about the provision of more time for Parliamentary Questions before Easter. As that feast is now looming over the horizon, can he indicate with greater precision when the statement will be made?

Mr. Whitelaw: I think I said that I would put various proposals before the House, for the House to come to a conclusion about Question Time, following the Report of the Select Committee on Procedure. I stand by that. I have undertaken to do it before Easter, and it will be done before Easter. Greater precision than that I cannot give this afternoon.

Mr. C. Pannell: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that a Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) was withdrawn on his assurances about a prospective Review Body on Members' remuneration and other things, and that he gave an undertaking to set up the body as soon as possible? Will he bear in mind that as the chairman of that body we want a person no less outstanding than Mr. Justice Lawrence, who presided over the previous one? Has he any statement to make about progress?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way he has put his question. The whole matter of the Review Body covers salaries wider than those of Ministers and Members of Parliament. What I undertook was to refer to the top salaries Review Body, as soon as it was set up, the question of Ministers' and Members' salaries. I regret that there has been some delay in getting the Review Body set up. I am very anxious that it should be set up at the earliest possible moment. One of the reasons for the delay is the hope that we should get someone who would be widely regarded as suitable in the House. I very much hope that we have such a man.

Sir F. Bennett: Two or three days ago there was quite a serious revolution and

apparent counter-revolution in a Commonwealth country in which a substantial number of British subjects live and which has considerable British property, namely, Sierra Leone. Since then we have not had any authoritative statement. I in no way criticise the Government for that, as the normal method is to obtain a Private Notice Question, which was not possible on this occasion. But as the situation is still uncertain, could a statement on the matter be made in the near future?

Mr. Whitelaw: My right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary is sitting beside me and has heard what my hon. Friend said. He has assured me that if there were any question of the safety of British citizens being involved he would immediately make a statement.

Mr. Oram: The Report of the Select Committee on Overseas Aid was published yesterday. Since the House has had very little opportunity either in debate or even at Question Time to discuss matters of aid and development, may we have the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that that Report will be discussed quite soon?

Mr. Whitelaw: There is a number of Select Committee Reports which various hon. Members on both sides urge me to have debated. Therefore I think I should be unwise to go so far as to give the assurance which the hon. Gentleman seeks. I note the importance of the Report, and if it could be fitted in I should be very pleased.

Mr. Woodnutt: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to Motion No. 490 in my name and the names of several of my right hon. and hon. Friends about the undemocratic action of the Students' Union at Southampton University in proscribing the Conservative Association?
[That this House deplores the undemocratic action of the Students' Union at Southampton University in refusing to recognise the University Conservative Association, Pressure for Economic and Social Toryism, and the Monday Club, thereby denying these political organisations the use of the Students' Union Hall and grants from public and other funds, and, at the same time, giving recognition to the University Labour Club, the Third World and communist organisations and


the University Women's Liberation Movement; and, in the event of the Students' Union failing to respond democratically when a further motion is put to the union meeting at the beginning of next term, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to take appropriate action to ensure that undemocratic resolutions of this sort by students' unions have no validity.]
In view of this flagrant disregard of the best principles of democracy held sacred by every hon. Member, may we have an early opportunity to debate the Motion?

Mr. Whitelaw: I note what my hon. Friend says, and I have considerable sympathy with his point. However, I cannot offer time for such a debate in the near future.

Mr. Atkinson: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that Mr. Alf Allen, Mr. Will Paynter, Mr. George Woodcock and some 27 other members of the General Council of the T.U.C., together with quite a number of leading academic authorities on industrial relations, have all now declared that they will not serve on any of the bodies proposed to be set up by the Government? Because of the outstanding work to be undertaken by those various bodies, is it possible for the Government to provide time next week for us to discuss this unprecedented situation, when in advance of the making of appointments to various Government authorities and investigation boards those people have declared that they will not serve on any of them? What will the Government do about this? Will the right hon. Gentleman give time for us to discuss the declaration by the T.U.C. that in no way will it co-operate with the Government over the Bill?

Mr. Whitelaw: It is not for me in answering business questions to deal with the hon. Gentleman's various arguments. I will call the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment to what the hon. Gentleman has said. I cannot give time for any such debate next week.

Mr. Jennings: May we have an early debate on the use of £46,000 of public money in the printing, publication and distribution in the post offices of a fact sheet on behalf of a minority, partisan group—in other words, those who favour entry into the Common Market?

Mr. Whitelaw: There is no question of these pamphlets being issued on behalf of any faction. There has been a great demand—and I notice that it has come rather more than from anywhere else from those who may be opposed to the Common Market—for the maximum amount of information about the European Economic Community. As a result, the Government are making available, as they did during the 1961–63 negotiations, factual pamphlets about the Community.

Mr. Prentice: May I press the right hon. Gentleman on the question of a possible debate on overseas aid in the next few weeks? Does not he agree that the value of Select Committee Reports would be greatly enhanced if they were debated in the House when the information is still fairly fresh? Therefore, may I make a special appeal to him to try to arrange a debate in the next few weeks?

Mr. Whitelaw: I note what the right hon. Gentleman said. It was rather interesting that in the debate on the Green Paper on Select Committees last November differing views were expressed as to when the debates should take place, and how often Select Committee Reports should be debated. It was felt that sometimes the value of the Report was more in its impact outside, and that a debate in the House might not be needed. There are differing answers with regard to different Reports. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but I cannot promise time for a particular debate in the near future.

Mr. John Wells: Particularly since the Leader of the Opposition has this afternoon expressed great interest in the apple industry, will my right hon. Friend find time to debate Motion 476?
[That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Government on its swift action in laying the Broccoli Anti-Dumping Order on 10th March and urges it to keep all sensitive horticultural crops under constant review in order to prevent dumping at the earliest moment.]
This is clearly a matter of some importance on both sides. But seriously, at this time of year, when we are early in the horticultural season, it is important that anti-dumping be considered, because so often it has been considered when it


is too late. Could my right hon. Friend do something before Easter?

Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps I might be reasonably in order in congratulating my hon. Friend on the quick and ready manner in which he has been able to respond to the Leader of the Opposition. I am very glad that he feels that the Order has been put forward quickly. I am grateful to him for his support, but I cannot offer time for a debate.

Mr. Charles Morris: Is the Leader of the House aware that because of the cooperation, good sense and perceptiveness of the Opposition Front Bench, the House was able to have a short debate last Thursday on redundancy and other problems associated with the steel industry? Since Mr. Speaker asked during that debate for the co-operation of hon. Members on both sides, we were able to have 15 speeches in 87 minutes. Against that background it was staggering to hear the Minister for Industry say that he did not propose to answer one single point which had been made during that debate. Could the Leader of the House find time to have another debate in Government time on the important problem of rising unemployment, which is causing great consternation and suffering among steel workers?

Mr. Whitelaw: All Oppositions—and I have had considerable experience in Opposition over a period of time—have their proper rights under Supply time. If the hon. Gentleman feels that his right hon. Friends on the Front Bench have exercised their choice wisely that is very good, and I do not wish on this occasion to dissent from that choice. Even if I did, it would not matter because I have no say on what they choose to do with their time. On the other matter raised by the hon. Gentleman, I shall call the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to what the hon. Gentleman has said, and if a statement has to be made one will be made. However, I cannot promise time for a debate in the near future.

Mr. Speaker: In regard to the point made by the hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Charles Morris), I must point out in fairness to the Min-

ister that I exercised pressure on both Front Bench speakers to keep their windup speeches short in order to allow time for more back bench speeches. In those circumstances it is a little unfair to criticise the Minister for the brevity of his reply.

Mr. Morris: On a point of order. I was not criticising the Minister for the brevity of his speech, Mr. Speaker, but for the fact that he indicated he had not time to answer any single point.

Mr. Speaker: I note what the hon. Gentleman says.

Mr. Fowler: Could I draw attention to Early Day Motion No. 473, which stands in my name and which has the support of 50 other Members. The Motion deplores the recent action in the Nottingham area where workers were fined for not taking part in a one-day unofficial strike on 1st March. As there is now an attempt to enforce that decision, could my right hon. Friend find an early opportunity to debate the matter?
[That this House deplores the decision of the Nottingham District Committee of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundry Workers to fine members, including Rolls-Royce workers, for not taking part in the one-day political strike against the Industrial Relations Bill on 1st March.]

Mr. Whitelaw: I realise the importance of the matter which my hon. Friend raises. I would eschew any discussion of the merits on both sides. As much as I should like to do so, I could not give time for a debate in the near future.

Mr. Barnett: Could the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that when the White Paper on Rolls-Royce is published it will include figures showing Government calculations of how money spent will provide an economically viable return?

Mr. Whitelaw: It would be unwise of me of all people to give assurances on any particular form of figures. I note what the hon. Gentleman says. The White Paper on Rolls-Royce will set out all the facts about the whole situation.

Mr. Biffen: Is my right hon. Friend aware that recent events have given rise to a legitimate interest in all parts of the


House about the extent to which the role of sterling and the European Monetary Union are subjects which come up for discussion and negotiation in the current Brussels talks? If the Government are to maintain their excellent record of candour on this issue, will my right hon. Friend say whether the Government will make a statement on this specific matter next week?

Mr. Whitelaw: Without wishing to comment one way or the other on the accuracy of my hon. Friend's particular point, I will call the attention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to what he has said.

Mr. Ross: In regard to any statements which may be made next week by a departmental Minister covering the responsibilities of other Departments and which may be related to Wales or Scotland, will the right hon. Gentleman look at the frustrations which arose yesterday and ensure that when a Minister makes a statement on behalf of colleagues he is briefed to answer Questions? Alternatively, could we not change the practice and allow individual Ministers to answer questions appropriate to their own Departments?

Mr. Whitelaw: I note what the right hon. Gentleman says. He knows that in these matters we have been following the precedents of the previous Government. However, if the House wishes otherwise I am prepared to consider changes. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and the House will realise that the time of the House could be taken up unnecessarily if on a matter affecting the United Kingdom there were to be separate statements from the Secretaries of State for both Scotland and Wales. I am sure the House would regard that sort of practime as a difficult one, but I am prepared to look into particular cases.

Mr. Ross: believe that the right hon. Gentleman is missing the point. If a Secretary of State makes a statement on behalf of colleagues, he should be briefed to answer questions. I regard what happened yesterday as a disgraceful state of affairs. The hon. Member was told to put down a Question to the Secretary of State for Scotland, which was quite wrong.

Mr. Whitelaw: The right hon. Gentleman coupled his question with remarks about separate statements, and I was replying to that matter. I accept his point about a Minister having to be briefed, but equally I have had experience of complaints having been made about the making of separate statements even where that has happened. I doubt whether any briefing of a United Kingdom Minister would stop Scottish Members complaining that they do not receive a separate statement.

Mr. Speaker: I warn hon. Members that I shall allow only a few more questions on the business statement.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: I appreciate that there is not much time available for a debate on the matter raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler), but I should have thought there could be a statement by the Law Officers on the interesting point whether action can be taken against people for not indulging in illegal activities. The House will be interested to have a statement by the Law Officers as to how those individuals stand in law.

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot make any definite commitment. I will call the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General to what my right hon. Friend has said. If a statement is considered suitable, one will be made.

Mr. James Johnson: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to allow time to debate the gigantic boob perpetrated on the House by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? We have had on the Order Paper the Fishing Vessels (Acquisition and Improvement) (Grants) (Amendment) Scheme 1970, which has now been taken off since it has been held to be ultra vires by a Select Committee. May we be told when the House will be given an opportunity to debate this matter, or is it to be allowed to lie in obscurity for weeks?

Mr. Whitelaw: I wish to make it clear that the Order concerned was put forward and was ruled ultra vires by the Statutory Instruments Committee. There have been occasions, of which I could give the precedents, where Governments have proceeded despite such recommendations from the Statutory Instruments Committee and have carried an Order through the House. I thought such a


course of action was wrong. It was right to pay attention to what the Statutory Instruments Committee thought and therefore I asked my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture to consider the matter and he decided to withdraw the Order. He has undertaken to consider the position and will put down another Order and make a statement to the House about it.

Mr. Richard: Since as long ago as November we were promised a White Paper on commercial radio "early next year", could my right hon. Friend say whether it will be published next week? In fact, will the Government publish two White Papers—the original one produced by the Minister and the revised version approved by the Cabinet? It might be helpful to adopt such a practice so that the House may know how the Minister has been over-ruled.

Mr. Whitelaw: All I can say is that the White Paper on commercial radio which was promised will be published next week.

DIVISION NO. 335 (POINTS OF ORDER)

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I say at the outset that I have given notice to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) and to my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip of my intention to raise this point of order.
The House may be in some difficulty on this matter since the HANSARD report which appeared this morning takes in our proceedings up until only 10.30 p.m. As a result, the particular part of our proceedings to which I wish to refer can only be read in typescript form in the Library. However, I have studied that typescript of what happened and, in the cause of accuracy, I have armed myself with a copy of it.
Those of us who have had the experience of taking the Chair of the House recognise the great difficulty in which the Chair is placed when points of order are raised in the middle of a Division. Just after midnight last night there was a great deal of noise in the House, and the hon. Member for Ealing, North felt obliged to raise a point of order referring

to my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip. When the hon. Gentleman first raised the matter, you, Mr. Speaker very properly said that you could not deal with it at that moment since you had to put the Question. You duly put the Question, and the hon. Member for Ealing, North then expounded his point of order yet further. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller) also raised a point of order to which I do not wish to refer and to which I take no exception. At the end, you are reported as having made what I submit was a very wise Ruling. You said, "At this time of night, at the end of a very long and hard day's night, a lot of things happen, are said and done, and the less attention that we pay to them the better." Unfortunately, although the House accepted your advice, certain newspapers and the B.B.C. have not. As a result, an allegation about my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has been put about.
I should have much preferred the hon. Member for Ealing, North to have felt inclined to make a personal statement today. I recognise that he is under—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish!"] I ask hon. Members opposite to recognise that I am trying not to make matters worse. I am trying to ensure that the allegation made against my hon. Friend can be cleared up as soon as possible, one way or the other. I should have much preferred, had the hon. Gentleman so wished—and I do not know whether he does wish—that the hon. Gentleman might have intended to make a personal statement. I recognise that it is difficult for an hon. Member to make a personal statement when there are no copies available of the HANSARD reporting the relevant passages. That is the only reason why I raise the matter as a point of order today. It is a matter which should not be left on public record unchallenged when, as far as all of us on this side of the House are aware, my right hon. Friend was in no way guilty of what he was accused of last night—

Mr. William Hamilton: He could hardly walk up there.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Any hon. Member who has been in this House for any length of time knows that there are moments at the end of a very protracted exercise involving a severe test of both Whips' offices when a little exhilaration


is to be expected. On this occasion, however, I want categorically to say that there was no foundation in the allegation against my right hon. Friend, and I hope that the hon. Member for Ealing, North will withdraw it.

Mr. Molloy: I wish first to confirm that the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), with his customary courtesy, told me that he intended to raise this matter today. In view of the fact that copies of the OFFICIAL REPORT are not available, I must rest my case on any decision reached by you, Mr. Speaker. I must tell the hon. Gentleman, with all the courtesy that I can muster, that if anyone should be making a personal statement it is not me but the Government Chief Whip. I have no intention of taking the matter further or stirring it up any more, but I shall fight against the entire Tory Party as long as God gives me breath.

Dr. Glyn: Further to that point of order. It is within the knowledge of this House that I am a medically qualified man. I stood next to my right hon. Friend at the Bar of the House, and I can assure the House that the allegation which has appeared in the newspapers is completely and utterly unfounded.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that it would have been better if this matter had been considered after a certain period for reflection, during which time we could have studied the OFFICIAL REPORT. I really think that this is a House of Commons matter. It is very easy to toss this kind of suggestion late at night from one side or the other. I think that most of us know that there is seldom foundation for this kind of statement. But this is a House of Commons matter. So often, a great deal of serious discussion attracts very little attention in the Press. When an incident of this sort occurs, immediately it becomes headline news.
I propose to wait until I see the OFFICIAL REPORT and then to decide, probably tomorrow, whether any further action is necessary.

BUSINESS STATEMENTS (QUESTIONS)

Mr. Lawson: On a different point of order. Last week, in business questions, we were greatly pressed for time because of the short debate which was to follow, and in my judgment, Mr. Speaker, you cut short business questions. May we take it that when time is not so pressing, as it is not today, there will not be any truncation of business questions, more especially as hon. Members on both sides were unable to ask questions?

Mr. Speaker: This is a matter about which I am very much in the hands of the House. I now try to keep a record of hon. Members who ask questions on the business statement. According to my list, the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) has asked questions on three out of the four previous business statement days. Questions were asked for nearly 25 minutes today. I will try to play this hand from Thursday to Thursday in an effort to meet the wishes of the House, and I take note of the hon. Gentleman's point.

Mrs. Renée Short: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In order to enable you to get your records straight before future business statements, will you be good enough to note that I have tried unsuccessfully to raise a matter on the last three business statements? Can I hope to catch your eye next Thursday?

Mr. Speaker: If there is a business statement next Thursday and the hon. Lady rises again, she will have as much chance as any other hon. Member.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this House do meet on Thursday, 8th April at Eleven o'clock, that no Questions be taken after Twelve o'clock, and that at Five o'clock Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without putting any Question.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

ADJOURNMENT (EASTER)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House at its rising on Thursday, 8th April do adjourn till Monday, 19th April.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

4.9 p.m.

Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I submit that this House ought not to adjourn for the Easter Recess until the Foreign Secretary recalls the Earl of Cromer, Her Majesty's Ambassador to Washington. The representation of this country in the key capital of the Western world and perhaps the most important capital in the world has now become a major scandal. The Earl of Cromer's fashion and, if I may say so, the Countess of Cromer's fashion of representing this country in Washington is becoming a major scandal and his very large salary and substantial expenses account, paid by Her Majesty's Government and authorised by this House, ought to be paid, because he is its man in Washington, by the Conservative Central Office. We knew when Lord Cromer was appointed to the office—indeed, before he was appointed—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must warn the hon. Gentleman. This sort of discussion is not an easy one to control. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to mention some topic which he thinks ought to be discussed and he can put the reasons very shortly. But he cannot make the kind of speech he would make if the topic were being debated.

Mr. Kaufman: I take the point, Mr. Speaker. I know that you will keep me in order if I stray beyond it, but I will do my best not to.
When and before Lord Cromer was appointed Ambassador, we knew that he was a committed supporter of the Conservative Party. Indeed, his comportment of office as Governor of the Bank of England under the Labour Government was to try to undermine that Government; indeed, he caused a great many of their difficulties.
The fact that a man is committed politically to a certain party is not in itself a disqualification from appointment as Ambassador in Washington. Other politicians and ex-politicians have been appointed to the post. Mr. John

Freeman, our previous Ambassador in Washington, served in this House and was a member of the Government and a committed member for a considerable time of the Labour Party. Lord Harlech, who preceded Mr. Freeman, was a committed member of the Conservative Party and also a former Minister and Member of this House. Both Lord Harlech and Mr. Freeman comported themselves in Washington with all the tact and impartiality that one would expect of Her Majesty's Ambassador in Washington. It cannot be said that the Earl of Cromer is doing so. He is behaving not like a representative of the United Kingdom but like a representative of the Conservative Party. Indeed, in view of the statement by the Secretary of State for Employment that Mr. George Woodcock has resigned as Chairman of the C.I.R., I suggest that Lord Cromer be recalled for that job, since few such abject political toadies are available to the Government for cat's-paw jobs of that sort.
The evidence on which I ask that the House do not adjourn for Easter until this man has been recalled is available in the speeches he has been making in Washington, and if he continues during the Easter Recess to make speeches in the United States of this quality and nature he will, during a period when the House is not sitting and cannot question his behaviour, do grave damage to the standing of this country and undermine our relations with the United States which are of such great importance. I want to quote from two speeches he has made and which we cannot be sure that he will not repeat while the House is in recess. Yesterday, the Daily Mail reported him as talking about
…Britain's determination to stick to its diet, strip the fat from flanny industrial management and curb union greed.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Kaufman: I am delighted that hon. Members opposite cheer those words. It is natural that they should do so. It was, after all, a partisan Tory speech. These are Conservative Party sentiments. They are not the sentiments of the people of Britain. He went on:
The country as a whole is beginning to grasp that the mere granting of more money to those who combine to exploit their demands…without regard to their own contribution to increased productivity are in


reality impoverishing the rest of the community.
This is the language of the Conservative Party. It is not the language of the country. He went on to say that the central policy must be that of change, adding:
Above all, change to less reliance on the State.
These are the sentiments of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. They are not the sentiments of the country as a whole. I come back to Lord Cromer's maiden speech last month as Ambassador. He was addressing the extremely influential National Press Club in Washington. He said that the present Government were creating a fundamental restoration of freedom in Britain.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Kaufman: Hon. Members opposite cheer again, because this was a partisan speech.

Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is a most distasteful and perhaps even slanderous attack on our Ambassador in Washington. Among other things, it is suggested that when Lord Cromer was Governor of the Bank of England he undermined the Government. May the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) not be asked either to withdraw or to repeat his statement outside the House?

Mr. Kaufman: You were good enough to tell me, Mr. Speaker, that if I strayed beyond the bounds of order you would correct me, and I have said that I would accept your Ruling.

Mr. Speaker: I will endeavour to keep the hon. Gentleman in order. It is, however, a practice of the House not to attack people who are not able to defend themselves.

Mr. Kaufman: If I may say so, with respect, since your conduct of the Chair has been such in your period of office as to attract respect from all of us, Lord Cromer is well equipped to defend himself and he speaks in public a great deal.

Mr. John Mendelson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Whilst the general principle you have just outlined has always been accepted, it is the right of hon. Members, as you well know,

to criticise servants for whom the Foreign Secretary is fully responsible, and this of course is what my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) is doing.

Mr. Speaker: The proper method is to attack the Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Freeson: Come on.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will not have an hon. Gentleman saying "Come on" to me. He must not shout at the Chair from a sedentary position. We have had this sort of thing already today. This is a difficult matter for the House. It is in order to attack the Foreign Secretary for the behaviour of a public servant. I do not want to be unnecessarily restrictive, but I thought that the hon. Member for Ardwick was getting a little near a personal attack on this individual. I hope that he will be careful.

Mr. Reginald Freeson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Early Day Motions have been tabled in the past referring to various public officers, including Lord Cromer, and they have been perfectly in order. I ask you to reconsider what you have just ruled, which is a suggestion that it is not open to us to criticise ambassadors who have been conducting themselves as Lord Cromer has been conducting himself.

Mr. Speaker: There has to be a substantive Motion if it is to be in order.

Mr. William Hamilton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the period of the Labour Government, the then Opposition never hesitated to abuse Professors Balogh and Kaldor on racialist grounds. Neither was in a position to defend himself. What was good for the then Opposition should not be too bad for us.

Mr. Speaker: All I can say about them is that I was not then in the Chair but that I would have ruled then as I rule now, whoever the individuals concerned.

Mr. Hastings: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The particular objection which I took to the distasteful speech of the hon. Member for Ardwick was when he accused Lord Cromer of undermining the Government when he was Governor of the Bank of England. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary cannot be held responsible for that.


My point is that the hon. Gentleman should either be required to withdraw or repeat his remarks outside the House.

Mr. Speaker: I think we have had enough of these points of order. When Lord Cromer was Governor of the Bank of England he worked in co-operation for a great deal of the time with a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think that we should now get on.

Mr. Kaufman: I am obliged to you, Mr. Speaker. As I have said, I shall abide by any Ruling you make on this matter. I should like to continue making the point that you yourself have fairly put—that the Foreign Secretary is responsible for these matters and for the conduct of an ambassador. Therefore, if an ambassador behaves in a way in which it is not suitable for an ambassador to behave—namely, as agent of a political party rather than of the Government and the people of Britain—then the Foreign Secretary, whatever his political complexion, should call him to order and recall him.
I return to the Earl of Cromer's speech in Washington last month. On the basis of that speech, the Foreign Secretary should recall him, and if he does not he himself will be acting in a manner prejudicial to his office. The Earl of Cromer said that the present Government were creating the "new birth of freedom". Those are partisan opinions. There are millions of people in this country who would disagree with him.
He said:
We have learnt in Britain, in terms of practical economics, that the removal of more and more economic activities from the pressures and sanctions of the profit motive makes the economy less flexible in the face of change, less responsive to new demands and less dynamic and vigorous in all directions.
It is possible to agree or disagree with those sentiments. What cannot be denied is that they are partisan sentiments with which almost any hon. Member on this side of the House would disagree and against which more than 10 million voted at the last general election.
They bear out my submission that the Earl of Cromer is in Washington to represent not the British people, but the Conservative Party as the personal friend of the Prime Minister. I go further than that. It is not only the Earl of Cromer but his wife, the Countess of Cromer, who

was recently quoted in the Press as having made intensely obnoxious remarks about the attitude towards human life of South-East Asians, saying that the Vietnamese did not believe that human life was of any importance and going on from that to imply that it did not matter how many Vietnamese were killed in the war in South-East Asia. Those are grave reflections upon Britain's standing.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: rose—

Mr. Kaufman: No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison: rose—

Mr. Kaufman: I will give way to the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison), for I said that I would do so.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: May we please have the source and date and circumstances of that speech? Is the hon. Gentleman in a position to provide the House with the text of that alleged speech?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) must not invite the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) to go beyond the bounds of my Ruling. The hon. Member for Ardwick may indicate the general lines of his argument, but if he were to go into greater particularity he would be out of order. He may make a general statement but not make the sort of speech which he would make in a standard debate.

Mr. Kaufman: If I may reply to the hon. Member for Chigwell, whose courtesy I appreciate; the text can certainly be produced. I do not have it with me, but one of my hon. Friends has gone to secure it; it is in the Library. It was reported in the Observer of three or four Sundays ago. If it is not produced in the course of my speech, I guarantee to hand a copy to the hon. Gentleman so that he will know that I am not making an unsubstantiated attack.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that the hon. Member for Ardwick can have heard my Ruling, which he professed to respect. I said that he must not go into that kind of detail. What he sends by post to the hon. Member for Chigwell afterwards I do not mind, but he must not develop


the point now at such length or in such detail.

Mr. Kaufman: I apologise, Mr. Speaker, and I move from that to say that I submit that the conduct of the Countess of Cromer necessitates that the Secretary of State should recall her husband in order that she may be recalled and stopped from doing greater damage in Washington than she has done already.
We all recall that during the General Election campaign there was a notorious broadcast on B.B.C. television in which the Earl of Cromer made a party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party, all the more effective for the fact that it was not billed as a party political broadcast. His Conservative Party allegiance was not known. This broadcast had an enormous impact because he appeared to be the impartial ex-Governor of the Bank of England making an impartial judgment of economic prospects—it was, of course, inaccurate, but that is by the way.
Having made this party political broadcast, he was appointed Ambassador in Washington and so given the largest fee for a party political broadcast that anyone has ever received. If he will not recall him, the Secretary of State should at least tell him that he ought not to go on making these speeches, that there is no longer any need to go on earning the ambassadorship by making Conservative Party speeches because he has received that ambassadorship.
The best thing the Leader of the House can do is to tell the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that the conduct of the Ambassador in Washington is becoming intolerable to the people of this country, because he speaks not for the people of this country but for the diminishing minority who support the party opposite. I must advise the Leader of the House that unless I receive an assurance that the Secretary of State will say that he is considering recalling him, I may have to divide the House against the Motion.

4.26 p.m.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: I am concerned about the length of the Easter Recess because I am concerned that in the near future we should discuss a Statutory Instrument which will impose

devastating and swingeing charges on three sectors of the National Health Service. It will come into operation on 1st April.
I am well aware that the Government are within their rights and that the House will be entitled to discuss the Order so that hon. Members may make representations on behalf of constituents affected by it. I realise that we cannot do that now because of the difficulty of finding time—and I understand the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House in recent weeks, for we have all been in difficulty. But for matters of this importance Governments often find time before Orders come into operation, before charges are levied, for Prayers to be discussed in the House.
It is not unprecedented for an Order to come into operation first. What is unusual in this case is that three separate Orders have been rolled into one. On previous occasions when there have been increases, under the preceding Government and when the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) was Minister of Health, we have had the opportunity to discuss each separately. On this occasion there are to be increases in prescription charges and in dentistry and optical charges. If each were covered by a separate Order, there would be a total of 4½ hours' debate. On this occasion, however, even if we were able to have a Prayer, the total would be half an hour for teeth, half an hour for eyes and half an hour for prescription charges. The House has been badly treated and I am asking for time for consideration of this subject, even if that means returning from the Easter Recess a little early.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned for the chronic sick and disabled. Charges for the chronic sick are to be raised. A person with Parkinson's disease, or suffering from one of the 68 diseases which most people recognise as chronic, will have to pay these extra charges.
In the last Parliament, the Government recognised those diseases as chronic but, because the doctors would not designate them as such, reached a compromise agreeing that there should be a "season, ticket" by which a person requiring medication for the rest of his life could


pay 30s. for six months, or £2 15s. for a year. The most shameful and callous of the increases to be imposed by the Order is on people who are permanently sick. For instance, someone who may have had a coronary thrombosis and who will require tablets for the rest of his life will have to pay an extra 10s. tax on the six months' ticket, or an extra 15s., up to £3 10s., on the annual ticket, which, of course, is the better buy, as the Consumers Association would say.
On the whole range of taxing the sick to help the Exchequer, in the past the House has always given as much time as possible so that the cases may be deployed. The right hon. Gentleman will know that I took precisely the same attitude when I had to pray against the Orders of my Government. I am not proud of the fact, but when unfortunately, under different circumstances and under pressure, a prescription charge was imposed, I prayed against it, had a full debate and divided the House, and the greatest amount of voting I am afraid against my own Government on that kind of exercise was the vote for which I was a Teller.
When I press the right hon. Gentleman about this matter, I am doing nothing that I have not consistently done for a long period. The effect on the dental health of my constituents and everyone in the country is such that this matter warrants more than just one and a half hours after the Order has been put into operation. Registered blind people, because of their low visual activity, need constant optical attention, as do those who wear very thick pebble-type glasses. These are the people who will now be charged more money from next week.
There are a number of other points. The House will be well-advised to have a full day to deploy this argument, and not half a day, nor even a Prayer which could last one and a half hours for each section. If the Leader of the House can find no other way of doing it, I am certain that Members in all parts of the House who are interested in the sick, the disabled, the lame and the halt, the registered blind, and those who suffer from other disabilities and who are now to suffer swingeing increases as a result of this action, would be prepared to give up one day of their Easter holiday to

deploy the arguments on behalf of that sector of the community.
I put this point to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House on those grounds. I do not ask for half a day or a vague promise for the future. We must have a full day. I urge the House to give up a day of our Easter Recess so that the matter may be dealt with.

Mr. Greville Janner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be in order, this being my first point of order, to raise the happy matter which affects 126 hon. Members who have signed an Early Day Motion?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): It would not be appropriate to do so now. It is not a point of order for the Chair.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: I draw the attention of the House before Easter to the very challenging position in which railway commuters have been placed because of the withdrawal of grant aid, a decision taken by the previous Government and concurred with by the present Government. In addition to the withdrawal of grant aid, the commuters have to face the consequences which the threatened increase in railwaymen's wages will have on commuter fares. They will also have to face a burden in two to three years' time, if not before, of further increases in fares to perhaps almost double their present level.
For some commuters not in good financial circumstances when compared with others, this will mean that they may have to earn very big gross sums above their present salaries to carry this burden. This is a delicate subject on which to speak at present, and undoubtedly I would press the Leader of the House to make a statement soon about the position. This is something which we all have to think about. It has an effect on wage increases and the granting of them. It has an effect on commuters.
On the effect of the withdrawal of grant aid, only part of which has been taken away at present, what is the exact policy with regard to the capital need


of the railways to get the transport system going in the way required? I raise these questions because they are important and worrying, certainly to commuters in my constituency. I have shortly a petition, signed by 1,865 of them, whom I saw last week, to present to the House.
I realise that it is not only a consequence of Government action. It is a consequence of the wage inflation facing the country. Therefore, one has to take the increases that the Government have already faced in relation to the wage demands coming in at present.
I raise this matter before the Adjournment hoping that the Leader of the House will be able to provide for an early debate. It would be helpful if we could have a statement followed by a debate, so that we could deploy this argument, possibly before the Easter Recess.
It is a matter of urgency to get our transport policy right and to know what is happening, and to make people who are negotiating the wage settlement realise that a high settlement will have an additional adverse effect on these people and bring pressure, on their part, for more wage demands. I hope that something will be forthcoming from the Government shortly.

4.39 p.m.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: We should not adjourn the House until the Lord President of the Council has laid before us a Motion setting up a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. We on this side of the House, and, I trust, hon. Members on the other side, regard the setting up of such a Select Committee as a matter of considerable importance and some urgency.
All hon. Members would agree that the work done last year by Tom Steele and his colleagues who served on that Committee was a veritable mine of information and will be used for many years to come by hon. Members who wish to pursue arguments on a variety of topics.
We know that some Scottish Members have not perhaps found favour in the eyes of those who manage the business of the House because of the important discussions which my hon. and right hon.

Friends have been having on Scottish education upstairs. But that is, after all, a matter of great importance. We hope that that will not prejudice the setting up of a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs.
We hope that hon. Members on the Government benches would be willing to serve on this committee at as early a date as possible, in spite of other important Standing Committees dealing with Scottish business. Therefore, we hope that this will be done quickly. We appreciate the embarrassment of the Lord President and the Patronage Secretary about the shortage of Scottish Members on the Government benches, but we hope that perhaps they will stretch themselves a little longer and that we shall not hear anything of the foolish reports in some national newspapers that we should go along to the other place to find a few recruits to serve on a Select Committee of this kind. This is something which we on this side would not look upon with favour.
There are a number of good reasons for setting up the Select Committee urgently, not the least of which is the present very high rate of unemployment. We have the highest percentage—5·7—in the whole country. Had some of the solutions offered in the Report of the last Select Committee been accepted by the Government they would have gone some way to reduce that figure.
The whole question of investment grants versus investment allowances is an example I can think of quickly. The abolition of grants was condemned by all sections of the community in Scotland. We hope that a new Select Committee, appointed quickly, would think about these problems and call before it the C.B.I. in Scotland, employers and trade unions so that we could assess the effect of the change which the Chancellor made in his mini-budget last year.
Further, we would want the Committee to examine the Scottish housing situation. We have been promised that in the next Session of this Parliament the Secretary of State for Scotland will introduce a Bill dealing with rates in Scotland. Before we discuss that subject the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs should meet and should call before it the local authorities, builders and all who are concerned with housing finance in Scotland.
In recent days we have heard very odd rumours. In my county of Lanarkshire—my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) will back me up—valuations have risen by 100 per cent., perhaps in anticipation of very substantial rent increases. Before we discuss this important Bill next year we hope that the Select Committee can examine all these problems and study questions of housing finance and valuation in great depth so that we can reach possible conclusions.
I hope that the Lord President will see fit to appoint the Select Committee as a matter of urgency before we rise for the Easter Recess.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. Richard Body: I did not intend to intervene in the debate to explain why we should shorten the recess by one day, because that was not my wish. However, on my way into the Chamber I looked in at the Post Office and there received a leaflet which the House should examine, discuss and approve before the recess. It is entitled "Factsheets on Britain and Europe." It is totally appropriate that I raise this matter, because I understand from the Daily Mirror, which no doubt had better access to this information than other newspapers, that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is himself responsible for the leaflet.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): If my hon. Friend likes to think that he has found the accurate information, I cannot stop him, but it is not so. These factual pamphlets are, as I explained at Question Time—I do not know whether my hon. Friend was present—issued by the Government, and I am not personally responsible for them other than as a member of the Government.

Mr. Body: The correspondent of the Daily Mirror who had the news item exclusively is usually very careful about what he has printed under his name. Obviously, I accept what my right hon. Friend says. I understand that there must be some Ministerial responsibility for this document. I wish to have some explanation of the principle which enables this leaflet to be published. Much

propaganda has been issued over more than 10 years. A large amount has been spent on advertising the virtues of our entry into the E.E.C. In the past I have played a part in the campaign for entry, but it is a matter of some anxiety that another £40,000 or £45,000 should be spent on this campaign.
A few moments ago my right hon. Friend emphasised that these leaflets were of a factual kind. If that were so, one would hope that the facts would be ascertained to be true. On the last page it is stated—this should have been ascertained before the leaflets were published and before the recess—that throughout the Community prosperity and living standards have risen considerably faster than in Britain. I concede that we have perhaps not made much progress in the last five years, but my right hon. Friend will recognise that during that period we had a Labour Government, a fact which no doubt accounted in part for that. He should know that the growth rate is now—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not stray too far. He appears to have gone rather far from the original theme of his speech.

Mr. Body: I appreciate that, and I will return to it at once.
I wish that before the recess we could debate this leaflet and ascertain whether the facts contained therein are true. The one which I underline and which we should have the chance of examining is whether the last assertion which I have quoted is right. My right hon. Friend must know that our growth rate is now better than that of the one country in the Six which is comparable to Britain; namely, Germany, where the growth rate has fallen to 2·5 per cent.
I suppose we shall not have the chance of debating this new propaganda drive before the recess. I say "propaganda" deliberately, because it is propaganda. It is substantially the same as the European Movement is issuing and as is being issued by the whole network of European bodies. We have been having such propaganda for the last 10 years, and hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent. Now taxpayers' money is being spent. I object to the fact that we have not authorised the expenditure of


this money. I realise that the Post Office is no longer a Department of the Government but is a nationalised body. I understood that as a result of the Act passed in the last Parliament—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman appears determined to stray from the only theme that would be admissible.

Mr. Body: I conclude with a plea to my right hon. Friend to give some account of why we have not had the opportunity of discussing this before the recess. In particular, perhaps he will give some explanation why the House has not been informed about it beforehand and on what principle the Post Office is now being enlisted for this purpose. I realise that there have been Government publications about venereal disease and other such non-controversial topics issued by the Post Office. I hope that this is not sui generis. This is the first time that a matter which divides the House and the country has been published in this way. My right hon. Friend assures me by a nod that this is not so. In that case the House should be told. Many people would be grateful for the information.

4.49 p.m.

Mr. George Lawson: My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Charles R. Morris), during business questions last week, mentioned our short debate last Thursday, in which 15 back-benchers spoke about urgent matters. His grievance was that there was no attempt to answer questions. One might excuse the Minister, the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden), except that he read a brief. With these urgent questions in our minds, we felt that an attempt should have been made to answer them, and I want an answer before the House rises.
I have never before sought to speak in a debate like this, but I am concerned to ensure that the thousands of men whom I represent should have some assurance that they will not get redundancy notices over a short period. I am concerned about what might happen at Ravenscraig; I am not concerned with Hunterston now, since it can be discussed on another occasion. We want to know what will happen to the thousands employed in the steel works in the consti-

tuency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie) and my own.
Can those men be assured that there will be no question of six months' notice of redundancies? The Steel Corporation said that where major redundancies arise from rationalisation there would be at least two to three years' notice. We have been concerned to see that the present depression in the industry should not be used to knock out a number of those steel works. This could happen at any time, and the plea put forward that this is because of the temporary depression. These men understand that they have been operating under an agreement—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I thought that the hon. Gentleman knew that to go too deeply into the merit of what he is proposing would be unwise.

Mr. Lawson: I do not think that it would be unwise, but it would be out of order. I am trying to convey my anxiety. These men understood that if rationalisation brings closures there will be two or three years' notice and that the only reason for redundancies will be rationalisation and not a temporary depression in the industry.
I hope that the Lord President will use all the power of the Government to see that this is clearly carried out. I would have raised the question of the Select Committee—he knows how concerned I am about this matter—but my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen has put it so well that I am sure the Lord President will reply that he is setting it up right away.

4.54 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) started the debate with a bang, much to the consternation of certain hon. Members opposite, but he need not apologise, because he was on a very important constitutional issue. A number of my constituents have approached me on the very same theme about what they call this very expensive party hack who is now our ambassador in the United States. I cannot recall any case in all my time in the House of an ambassador of this country behaving and speaking in such an obviously partisan way in such a short


time as has Lord Cromer in the United States.
I am not blaming him. He has his party preferences like many other people, but I blame the Government and the Foreign Secretary for appointing him, knowing that he was likely to make that kind of partisan speech, which was a Tory Party broadcast made in America—on behalf of the Conservative Government, not of the British people.
I hope that the Leader of the House will convey these feelings, which are not lightly or frivously expressed. They are deeply felt by many people. The man might be making the same kind of speech during the Easter Recess, when we would not be able to challenge the Foreign Secretary on whether his views represented those of the Government. My hon. Friend has done the House and the country a service in using the debate for that purpose.
I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) will get a favourable reply from the Leader of the House—probably the only one we shall get today. The right hon. Gentleman made favourable noises last week. That does not mean much, very often, from this Government—I have had experience of the Leader of the House himself being nice and polite in saying "No"—but I think that this time he will agree to give adequate time to debate these diabolical increases in Health Service charges, this imposition of swingeing charges on the sick, in order to take that jolly, jolly sixpence off the income tax.
The Leader of the House among others will benefit from 1st April from that reduction. I hope he will rest peacefully in his bed in the knowledge that he will be a few hundred pounds better off and that the sick, of whom my hon. Friend spoke, will be paying a bit more at the dentist's, the optician's and the doctor's. That is the way the Tory Party works: such are their morals and their morality.
The hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) was right to ask for a debate in Easter Week. I do not want to come back on Good Friday, but I would come back on Easter Tuesday. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say, "We agree that our legislative programme is in one hell of a mess and. therefore, we shall take advantage of cutting the

recess to get some semblance of order into it." The right hon. Gentleman knows better than I do what a mess the Government's legislative programme is in. I had better not say to whom I have talked, but I know that it is in a mess and the right hon. Gentleman's officials know that it is in a mess. We cannot afford to go away for a holiday in the recess, so we should be happy to discuss these matters in the House.
I should be glad to discuss the matter which the hon. Member for Harwich talked about for two minutes and then went home for a long weekend. He referred to the increased fares which commuters in the London area are to pay. The reason for the increases is not the so-called inflationary wage increases given to the railway workers. Many railway workers are living on starvation wages. The reason is the Government's withdrawal of the subsidy from commuter lines. The affected commuters, who are mostly Tories—and therefore it serves them jolly well right—are being asked by the Government to stand on their own feet. The rest of the country has been subsidising their fares and the Government are saying, "You will have to stand on your own feet and perhaps walk on your own feet to London if you cannot afford the fares." For the hon. Member for Harwich to say that the reason for the increases is the inflated wage demands of railwaymen, many of whom are taking home less than £15 a week, is the sheerest humbug.
I turn to the questions raised by my Scottish collagues. Several weeks ago the Leader of the House, in reply to me, promised that a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs would be set up very shortly. I do not know how he defines "very shortly". We think that it should be defined as a matter of weeks. It is no excuse for the right hon. Gentleman to say that because of shortage of numbers in Scotland he will treat the Scottish people with contempt by not setting up a Select Committee. He could do it next week or the week after or while we are in recess. There are plenty of Scottish problems for us to discuss. We do not get enough time on the Floor of the House to discuss the very pressing Scottish problems.
We could use the whole of the Easter Recess week to discuss separate Scottish


problems on each day. The unemployment figure in Scotland is 122,000, and it is likely to go up in the Easter Recess. Unemployment does not often increase in the course of an Easter Recess, but it will do so this year. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Rolls-Royce?"] Even if the Government fork out the £100 million, there is no guarantee that the RB211 will be hailed out. In that event, thousands of skilled men in Scotland will be unemployed, perhaps in the very week that we are going away to enjoy the sunshine. This is an intolerable situation.
We could debate Scottish housing policy, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie) referred. We do not know the Government's policy on Scottish housing. We have been told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government will cut housing subsidies by from £100 million to £200 million by 1975. In the White Paper on public expenditure there is the figure of £150 million, which is the midway figure. But we have been constantly told by the Secretary of State for Scotland that he will not cut housing subsidies. Who is kidding whom? Last week the Secretary of State for Scotland said in the House that, although he does not propose to cut subsidies, he will increase rents by not less than 10s. a week over a period of years. Each council house tenant in Scotland is to be faced with a rent increase of not less than 10s. a week for as long as the Government are in office—and I hope that that will not be too long. A rent of £230 is very steep in Scotland, where wages are traditionally lower than they are in England.
The Secretary of State for Scotland does not say very much in the House. He is hardly ever here. When he is here he lets another Minister speak on his behalf. He does not even sit next to the Minister in order to brief him. We had this situation yesterday when the Minister of Housing and Construction made a statement on house ownership which had very little relevance to the Scottish problem, but the Secretary of State for Scotland was two or three places away from him so that when he was asked questions he could not answer them. Easter week would give the Secretary of State a very good chance to explain what relevance the Francis Committee's recommendations have for Scotland and what relevance yesterday's

statement by the Minister for Housing and Construction on owner-occupation has for Scotland. We could have a very lively and informative debate on one of the days in the recess.
I pass to two problems which are related to the matter about the leaflets in the post office on the Common Market. I do not know how many of them we shall get in the Easter holiday. Perhaps the Government will take a chance of pushing in a few more while we are away. It is the Government's policy to try to sell the Common Market. I am inclined to say that I hope that we shall join if we get the right conditions. It is no good anti-marketeers complaining. They have complained for a long time about a lack of information. They have said, "We do not know what is happening. We want to know the facts". Therefore, they should not complain when the Government say, "We will help you out. We will put these leaflets in the post office for you." But the Government must give us some indication of how many they propose to push in during Easter week.

Mr. John Mendelson: May I raise a point with my hon. Friend in a friendly way? I have been listening to him for years teaching me that we cannot rely on information which is supplied by any Conservative Government. Is my hon. Friend arguing that the Government's leaflets will give us the true facts about the Common Market?

Mr. Hamilton: The facts according to "St. William". The Government are entitled to put the facts as they see them. A quite lengthy pamphlet on the European Economic Community was put out by a previous Government setting out the facts as they saw them. We should be told how many leaflets will be sent out on this occasion while we are in recess.
No doubt the leaflets will tell us by how much prices have increased in the Common Market. We would be able to discuss during Easter week why prices have increased in this country before we join the Common Market. The Government are pursuing an agricultural policy which is designed to follow the Common Market's agricultural policy before we join. That is why we had the price review recently—and, incidentally, we


could debate that matter with great profit during Easter week. The Government are deliberately following the Common market's agricultural policy without this House having a chance to debate the matter.

Mr. Kaufman: Surely we would not have time to debate that in Easter week because of all the other desirable debates which my hon. Friend is suggesting for that time. Ought we perhaps to sit over the following weekend?

Mr. Hamilton: That is a point worth considering. We are putting forward these constructive proposals and the right hon. Gentleman is faced with a wide choice of debates. These subjects could even flow over to the Whitsun Recess. There is no shortage of matters for discussion.
The Leader of the House will be the first to say that the enemy of us all in this House is time. Every Thursday he resists demands for debates on various subjects because he has no time, but no other worker in the country will be going away for a week or 10 days at Easter, only us. Yet there are many matters which the people would like to have discussed and thrashed out in the open so that they can be told, for instance, why the Government are deliberately increasing prices.
The Prime Minister today said that we were getting on top of inflation. I do not know who is getting on top. I know who is getting underneath it. The old-age pensioners will not be getting on top of it. Old-age pensioners will say, "Yes, debate during the whole of Easter week the problems of the old folk". Milk is going up, there is to be a new meat tax, sugar, lamb and potatoes are all going up as a direct consequence of the price review, and we were prevented from debating this in the House of Commons.

Mr. James Wellbeloved: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the Government's policy in respect of imported lamb will have the effect as from July of putting 6p tax on the family's Sunday lamb joint?

Mr. Hamilton: This is worthy of debate. These matters are extremely important to people on low fixed incomes

who are being hit by the Government's agricultural policy, which is akin to that of the Common Market. Farmers in this country might even be killed during Easter week, as they were yesterday in Brussels, because they are not getting sufficiently high prices for their commodities. The Leader of the House should not laugh; it is a serious matter. He comes from an agricultural community, and his hill farmers especially are finding it difficult to live. The farmers of this country might be on the streets, as they were in Brussels last week, if the Government continue with their present policy.

Mr. John Mackie: I have only just entered the Chamber, and I apologise for hearing only some of my hon. Friend's remarks. He referred to the Government's policy being akin to that of the Common Market, but the Common Market is nearly self-sufficient, whereas we buy half our food from abroad. The circumstances are so different that we cannot say our policy is akin to that of the Common Market without enlarging on it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. The hon. Gentleman has just entered the Chamber and is confused. Perhaps he will relate his remarks to the subject of the debate.

Mr. Hamilton: I think I know how to keep in order. The fact that there is confusion about agricultural policy is a good reason why we should spend a day during the Easter week discussing it. My hon. Friend is a great expert, and he will not mind my saying that he has a vested interest in getting agricultural policy right. He knows that there will be import levies which will still further increase prices to the housewife. It is no good the Prime Minister saying, "Restrain your wage demands whilst we put up the prices." He must give evidence of good intent in the matter of prices if he asks the trade unions to restrain their wage demands.
I understand that the question of the resignation of George Woodcock from the C.I.R. was handled this afternoon by the Secretary of State for Employment on the advice of the Leader of the House. I was surprised at the way this was handled, and it is a matter which must be debated. For that question to be raised during Question Time verges


almost on contempt of the House. The fact that the trade union leaders are saying that they will boycott all the machinery that the Government are creating in the Industrial Relations Bill and the serious implications of that are worthy of debate during Easter week.
In winding up a whole series of subjects which we could debate in that week, in succeeding weeks and in succeeding recesses, I will refer to two more questions and then I am finished. These are to do not with domestic affairs but with the standing of Britain in the world. There is a mission here from South Africa. We have not been told what it is up to, but it is up to no good. It is wanting to buy arms, possibly from some of the companies that contributed to Tory Party funds in the last General Election. A decision on that might be made whilst we are away, because the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have been at great pains to tell the country, "We shall do what is in our interest." It is in our interest, apparently, according to the Government, to bolster up apartheid. If that is political morality, I should not be in politics. The ordinary people of this country do not want to be associated in any way with the bestial policies of the South African Government. For us to appear to connive in those policies would be treachery to the hundreds of millions of coloured people in the Commonwealth and in the world.
The same applies to Rhodesia. There is rumour in the Press that the Government are now conducting clandestine discussions with Ian Smith and his illegal, nasty régime in Rhodesia. What are they discussing? The Government have said that they will abide by the five principles. Ian Smith has said that he wants nothing to do with the five principles. Therefore, they cannot meet. Will a squalid deal be entered into while we are away? I hope not, but there is no guarantee, knowing the Government. They might have to sell out to Rhodesia. They are under great pressure from the Monday Club and that crew to do exactly that.
There is a whole mass of problems, at home and abroad, which the House has the right and the duty to debate, and which we are being denied the opportunity of discussing week after week, month after month—

Mr. Pavitt: On my hon. Friend's last point about talks with Rhodesia, if there were any question of that the Leader of the House would surely recall the House. This would be such a change of policy that talks could be held only if the House were recalled.

Mr. Hamilton: The Leader of the House should let us know, but he is among a gang of thieves, and he is not the master. He would be told to mind his own business if there were a deal of that kind. I know that there is power to recall the House in certain circumstances, but I am afraid that the decision would not be his. My hon. Friend's point is valid, but only to a certain extent.
I do not often take part in these debates, but I think that there are occasions when it is our duty to put to the Leader of the House the great feelings and fears which we have that the House does not debate, largely because it is short of time, matters of fundamental interest not only to the people of this country but, indeed, to the world. I think that we ought to look into not only the Easter Recess but all our recesses and consider cutting them shorter in order to have more debates on important fundamental issues.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. David Weitzman: My hon. Friends have raised many problems which warrant abandoning the Easter Recess to give us time to discuss them. I want to add one more subject which presents a very human problem which ought to be discussed in great detail by this House during the time provided for the Easter Recess. I refer to the problem of chronically sick and disabled persons.
The Leader of the House will be aware of Early Day Motion 477 calling for the implementation of Section 1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. That Motion, supported by more than 200 Members, calls for an Order to be made, and it deplores the delay by the Government in not making such an Order. I believe that there ought to be a debate during the period provided for the recess to see that it is carried out.
I remind the Leader of the House of the grave importance of this human problem. Last year, under the Labour Administration, a Private Member's Bill,


promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), was passed through all its stages in the House with the consent and help of all hon. Members. It was a non-political Measure which was welcomed by many people. One of the greatest things which, in my view, the Labour Government did was to see that, before the General Election, that Bill was put upon the Statute Book. It was one of the most important acts which could be done to provide a charter for the chronically sick and disabled.
In December last year, in an Adjournment debate, I had the privilege of raising the question of the implementation of Section 1 of that Act. I do not expect the Leader of the House to be aware of all the Sections of that Act. However, I remind him that under Section 2 a great many duties are placed upon local authorities which have to be carried out under the guidance of the Secretary of State. Section 1 provides that there shall be a register of disabled persons. It is necessary to have that register to identify the disabled persons. We cannot provide what is set out in Section 2 unless we know who the disabled are.
In my Adjournment debate in December the Minister specifically stated that it was the intention of the Secretary of State to make the necessary Order soon after 1st April this year. If the Leader of the House consults HANSARD he will find that statement set out clearly. The importance of this point is that nothing can be done under Section 1 by the local authorities unless the Order is made.
What happened? No Order will be made on 1st April or shortly after. We understand, from an answer to a question, that the Order will now be made on 1st October. Why the delay in regard to this most important matter dealing with the human rights of about 1½ to 2 million people?
We are about to adjourn for the Easter Recess; we are going on holiday. I suggest that if we do not do so we shall have an opportunity to discuss this very human problem. These people are waiting for the benefits conferred by the Act to be passed to them. They are waiting for the duties to be laid upon the local authorities. There is remarkable ignor-

ance on the part of local authorities and, indeed, of officers of the Ministry of what the Act is about or what has to be done under it.
This Government took office nearly a year ago. What has been done? Nothing. That is why I put forward this plea on behalf of these people. I suggest that our time could be usefully spent in discussing and considering how these things can be done. This country, this Government, ought to realise that millions of people are calling out for help. It is a disgrace and a scandal that the Government should postpone positive action in this matter.

5.26 p.m.

Mr. John Mendelson: I oppose the Motion put to the House this afternoon.
There are certain areas of this country, of which my constituency is an example, which have not had sufficient time either to put their case or to receive an answer from the Administration in the last few weeks about their serious economic problems.
The House knows that Supply will continue over the recess. We therefore have a duty to raise our grievances at this stage and to demand answers from the Government.
I am surprised that the Leader of the House is left in isolation—I do not know whether sad or splendid isolation; most of the time he looks sad—on the Treasury Bench. In view of the subjects which have been so profoundly raised by my hon. Friends, I should have expected the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and a representative of the Foreign Office to have been summoned to sit with the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench. [Interruption.] We can do without the Prime Minister.
Though I have not often taken part in Adjournment debates over the last 12 years, I have listened to them and I can remember messages being sent out by those who serve the Leader of the House, either through his P.P.S. or in some other way, to bring aid and assistance to him. The right hon. Gentleman is a moderate, modest man and would not claim to be all-knowing; he would not claim to have all the answers ready for the many problems which have been raised.
I should like to give notice that, in addition to the important point on domestic policy which I wish to put, I intend to raise a matter concerning foreign policy. I therefore hope that somebody from the Foreign Office will be present to give the right hon. Gentleman advice before he replies to the debate. This is the custom and the practice. It has been done under all Governments whilst I have been a Member. I do not say that the Foreign Secretary should be present—he may be engaged on something very important—but certainly the Minister of State could come and give him advice.
My first matter relates to the steel and engineering industries in South Yorkshire. We had a debate on the steel industry the other day but because of the lack of time hon. Members had to confine themselves to five-minute speeches and even then, although five hon. Members from South Yorkshire wished to speak, only my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) was able to make a contribution and put the case of constituents in that area who are most seriously affected by the steel industry redundancies.
Over 5,000 of these redundancies already officially announced fall upon the people of South Yorkshire. Complaints were made that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry did not reply fully to the questions which were asked, and there is no virtue in having a short time for debate and make short speeches if the Minister who is to reply does not provide detailed answers to the detailed points raised. I would rather a Minister had more time at his disposal and even fewer speeches were made from the back benches than that a Minister should have lack of time as an excuse for failing to give detailed replies. That does not make a debate, and the purpose of the House of Commons is to debate, not to read out statements drafted by civil servants.
There is an urgent need for a further debate forthwith—it ought to be held either next week or the week after—on the serious position in the steel industry. This is made all the more serious for my constituents since in the well-known firm of Newton Chambers in Chapeltown, part of the Penistone constituency, people are being put on short-time. This has

been explained in two ways by the management in meetings with shop stewards and senior trade union representatives. I took part in a meeting with shop stewards of the Newton Chambers works. There were also present two senior trade union officers for that area of South Yorkshire, and it was reported to me that they have been told by the directors of Newton Chambers that the reasons for this short-time working are, first, the non-availability of fine ends and, secondly, the slowing down of certain investment projects in the steel industry.
It is of the greatest possible urgency that this matter should be raised before we adjourn. The Government are clearly under an obligation to provide detailed answers. The explanation is being given that it is their policy which is slowing down further investment and expansion in the steel industry. They have countermanded the original investment policy plan of the British Steel Corporation. We have had no explanation yet how this will affect those who earn their livelihood in the steel industry, region by region.
The Secretary of State referred to a couple of particular cases in his reply but we have had no Government statement about the position in South Yorkshire. There are various means available to the Government, and the Leader of the House is peculiarly responsible for arranging the business of the House, to suit all Members, not only the Government. In this area, he cannot be merely a Government servant. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to arrange for statements to be made on this subject next week, and if he can give a guarantee that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will make a further statement dealing with some of the detailed points that have been raised about the position in the steel industry I will find it easier to support the Motion. If he can give no such guarantee, it will not be easy.
Then there are the negotiations on the RB211, which very seriously affect the people in my area. I was recently asked to take a delegation of three senior works representatives from the Sheffield area to see the Minister of Aviation Supply, with two other hon. Members. We had a long private meeting. I quote this as an example of the grave concern that


exists in my part of the country about the RB211 situation. One of the impressive points made by a senior convenor from the Firth Brown works at that meeting was of the many dangers that threatened not only the project itself but some of the "spin-off" developments that have been undertaken at Firth Brown's and in other parts of the country.
With certain types of material we are two years ahead of the United States in development work. This is material not being produced anywhere else in the world at present, and if the RB211 were cancelled this work would be discontinued because there is no other immediate use for it. We have heard very little about the way in which these negotiations are going.
It is important that we should have a statement about that next week, or at any rate before the recess, because there are redundancies in the Sheffield area which are a direct result of the immediate decision not to go full speed ahead, or so some of the local manufacturers seem to be saying as they interpret the position. I was glad to note that the Government have extended for a further fortnight the indemnity to the Receiver for work to be carried on, to quote the phrase of the Minister of Aviation Supply, "as though we should lose no time if the project were continued". It is essential for the Government to make certain that every manufacturer understands that this guarantee obliges them to continue the work, not to adopt a policy which contradicts that indemnity.
These are matters that the House of Commons should be debating as a priority. We know that the Government have cluttered up the work of the House with their wholly unnecessary and, as it will be proved, totally irelevant Industrial Relations Bill. They have not allowed the House enough time to discuss that Bill. At any rate, they have used the introduction of the Bill as an excuse for not dealing with many other problems. We cannot let the Government get away with that. They are evading and avoiding statement and debate on many urgent subjects.
It is obvious that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are not the least bit

interested whether the House of Commons is or is not in Session. Apparently they have no constituents with serious problems which must be raised before the House goes into recess. I cannot recall any occasion when there has been such a complete lack of interest on the Government side during an Adjournment Motion debate. There is no one there today. I cannot understand it. I know many right hon. and hon. Members opposite who are in areas adjoining mine, and they must have experienced problems similar to mine. I do not know where they are.

Mr. Pavitt: Is it not usual for hon. Members to have the courtesy after they have made a speech, to wait to hear what the reply will be? Is my hon. Friend aware that two hon. Members opposite have recently made speeches and then left?

Mr. Mendelson: I accept my hon. Friend's point, but I was not on courtesy at the moment. This debate is far too serious to worry about the lack of courtesy. I will forgive them that. I am not on about form or decorum. I am on a point of substance.
In mentioning statements made by our ambassador in the United States, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) performed a service in relation to the conduct of public figures. He was challenged during his speech by the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison), who is no longer in his place. He asked my hon. Friend to provide evidence to support what he was saying.
Normally the hon. Member for Chigwell is not unfair in debate, and when I say that he is no longer present I should, perhaps, add that he may have good personal reasons for not being here. He would not normally ask for information and then leave before receiving it.
The hon. Member for Chigwell having made that challenge, I immediately left the Chamber, I thought rather obviously, to get the necessary evidence. I therefore regret that the hon. Member for Chigwell is not present to receive the evidence he wanted. Naturally, the Chair allowed an interval to elapse between my showing signs of wishing to speak and actually speaking. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Chigwell might have been in


his place to receive the news I have to give him.
As I say, my hon. Friend raised a matter of grave importance. It is common ground that the conduct and speeches of any ambassador are properly matters for this House. The salary of our ambassador in the United States, to consider the point in its most simplest and fundamental form, depends on Supply, and we are discussing a Motion to enable that Supply to continue while we are not sitting.
The Foreign Secretary was in his place for a few moments at the beginning of the debate and then left, without leaving one of his several deputies in his stead. He listened to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Ardwick and then disappeared. I would have expected him back because he must provide the answer which the Leader of the House may be required to give later.
In any event, there is nothing in our rules to prevent the Foreign Secretary from asking for permission to make a short statement. I recall Adjournment debates when, a matter of grave importance having been raised, the Minister principally responsible has made a statement, leaving the remainder of the debate to be replied to by another Minister.
My hon. Friend, I believe rightly, castigated statements made by Lord Cromer as not being properly the expression of opinion of an ambassador, but as representing electioneering statements for the Conservative Party. I need not spend further time on that subject.
My hon. Friend was challenged when he moved on to a statement made by the wife of the ambassador. At no time since coming to this House can I recall referring to statements made by people other than those directly connected with the official business of the Government or their representatives. I am obliged to do so today because the reports clearly state that the statements made by Lady Cromer were made at the embassy to reporters. This was not something said outside Washington during, say, a weekend's holiday at Maryland, which I would not have regarded as the business of any hon. Member to raise or worry about.
I wish to put on record the reasons why my hon. Friend was absolutely right to raise this subject. The Observer, from

whose leader writers we do not always get support—that goes for hon. Members on both sides of the House—is, without question, one of the most reputable and reliable newspapers published in the United Kingdom. It said in its issue of 21st February, 1971:
Washington, 20th February.
From our correspondent.
Lady Cromer, wife of the new British Ambassador to the United States, was reported by the Washington Post today as saying it would be a mistake for the United States to leave Vietnam. She is said to have made the remark yesterday at an informal meeting with reporters at the British Embassy.
Lady Cromer reportedly went on to say: 'It's a long and terrible war, but saving face means so much more to the Asians than life. Life means nothing, but nothing to them. I love America and I would hate to see her lose face anywhere in the world'.
It was a shocking statement, the more shocking as this country and the Foreign Secretary have a special international responsibility in respect of the Vietnam war. The right hon. Gentlemafn, together with the Foreign Secretary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, is cochairman of the Geneva Conference, which is the continuing body responsible for efforts that might be made to make peace in Vietnam.
Here we had the wife of Lord Cromer taking it upon herself, most improperly, to make a statement of that kind. It was offensive because of its reference to the approach of Asian people to human life, obviously including their own lives. My hon, Friends and I are certainly not alone in our view of this, and I pray in aid a further quotation because it comes from a Conservative source.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do, but I hope he will continue to relate the matter to that which is being discussed.

Mr. Mendelson: I believe that I have just done so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in that by pointing out that the Foreign Secretary is co-chairman of the Geneva Conference, our ambassador in Washington and everybody connected with him must be even more careful before making a statement of that kind, a statement which was inflammable apart from being in deplorable taste.
In its issue of 27th February last the Spectator wrote—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he must relate what he is saying to the Motion before the House.

Mr. Mendelson: I am discussing the need for an immediate statement by the Foreign Secretary telling us that he will either recall the ambassador from Washington or will publicly dissociate himself from the statements made by both the ambassador and Lady Cromer. That is the minimum now required of the Government.
I wish to underline that this is not a point of view taken only on one side of the political spectrum, and that is why I wish to quote just one Conservative voice, the Spectator of 27th February:
It is easy to see that Lady Cromer, wife of our brand-new man in Washington, was only trying to be nice and helpful when she reportedly said to some journalists at an informal meeting in the Embassy, of Vietnam: 'It is a long and terrible war, but saving face means so much more to the Asians than life. Life means nothing, but nothing, to them. I love America, and I would hate to see her lose face anywhere in the world'. One can just about see what she was trying to say, in her very feminine sort of way, that people really should not be nasty to the Americans simply because of all those Asians they were having to kill and anyway the Asians don't mind being killed and anyhow it's all the fault of the Asians for wanting to save face and anyhow the Americans are far nicer but far nicer really and of course the fox enjoys being hunted and what paper did you say you were from and how nice and you'll have another gin and tonic?
In this way, the Spectator, not for the first time in the history of British journalism, has put in its own biting sarcasm the feeling and reaction of many people to those deplorable and outrageous remarks.
The Government know that in all the controversy over the tragic war in Vietnam I have always been one of those who have argued that Britain must do its utmost to make a contribution in peace-making. The right hon. Gentleman knows, because he was usually present during our debates, that I have always held that the key to a peaceful solution is that neither side must be humiliated. This is why I have never joined in any shouts for victory for one side or the other.
It is essential that anyone who has anything to do with the representation of

Her Majesty's Government should behave in the most careful and cautious manner. This is so even on the narrowest point, even on the point that the Foreign Secretary must regard as his own self-interest in the conduct of his important office, that he be a credible figure internationally if he wishes to see mediation started to bring this tragic war to an end.
Even from the narrowest point of view, it must be common ground that it is of the greatest possible importance that the Foreign Secretary must be able to show at every point in time—if, for instance, he wished to undertake a new joint initiative—that there is no one connected with our Diplomatic Service who holds any view as between the dignity of Asians and Americans or as between the value of American lives and Vietnamese lives. It must be common ground, surely, that anything which might cast the slightest doubt upon that is evil in relation to any potentially useful purpose which could be pursued by the Foreign Secretary in this tragic affair.
No one can deny that this and the other matters raised call for a serious reply, and a reply which cannot wait. The Leader of the House can hold out no hope of a foreign affairs debate or a special debate on Vietnam either next week or before the recess. What is necessary now is not a general debate in which one travels from post to post and says a few words in a tour d'horizon about Britain's diplomatic attitudes to seven or eight problems. What is required is a special debate on Indochina and Vietnam and a declaration of the Government's attitude on these matters without delay.
The Leader of the House ought to announce that he will do his best with his colleagues in the Government to arrange such a debate. But, more than that, we ought first to have a statement from the Foreign Office completely dissociating the British Government from the remarks which I have quoted and stating either that the ambassador will be recalled or that he will be told publicly that he will not be tolerated as our ambassador in Washington if he continues to abuse the position of ambassador, who ought to be neutral as between the political parties at home and not act as a party agent of the Conservative Party.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Clinton Davis: I support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) with regard to the observations made in the United States by the ambassador—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that such support as the hon. Gentleman may give will be directed to the subject of the Motion.

Mr. Davis: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you anticipated my next sentence. I was about to remark that the relevance of this matter to the debate lies in the possibility that there could be a repetition during the recess of the matters of which we complain. What steps are being taken to ensure that there is no repetition of this party-political propaganda by the ambassador and his wife? What opportunity shall we have to debate the issue if there is a repetition during the recess?
No doubt, the absence of hon. Members opposite is due to their being away at this moment trying to get through to Washington to explain our views to the ambassador. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary is at the moment recalling him. We know not. Let us hope that he does.
An important constitutional issue arises here which we ought to debate.
Ever since I have been a Member, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has regularly announced on a Thursday that we have no time to debate this, that or the other, all of them important matters. Hon. Members refer to Early Day Motions and ask for a debate, but I recall no occasion when the right hon. Gentleman has found opportunity for the House to debate one of those Motions.
I have said before that I consider that our recesses are too long. If we cannot find opportunity to debate matters of the kind raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), this is a sad commentary on the House, for recesses are far less important than the probing job which we as back benchers have to do.
The remarks of hon. Members opposite, now absent, criticising my hon. Friend for raising this matter were unworthy. If we as back-bench Mem-

bers were unable to inquire into such matters, nothing would ever be done. The present issue would never have seen the light of day in the House. It is a sad reflection that hon. Members opposite decided to leave the Chamber before they were given the opportunity of seeing some of the evidence which they were so urgently demanding a few minutes ago.
I turn now to matters at home. In London, we have an urgent problem of homelessness. It is a problem which causes anguish daily to many thousands of people. We have had no adequate opportunity to debate the issue in the past few months. There have been the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill and one or two other matters of that kind, but hon. Members have not enjoyed the opportunity to debate the problem of homelessness in depth. I can see the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Kenneth Baker) whispering to the Leader of the House, and I know what he whispered—that I spoke for 55 minutes on the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: Fifty-one.

Mr. Wellbeloved: A very good speech.

Mr. Davis: I was a little worried that on that occasion the hon. Member for St. Marylebone was not performing a useful purpose, but in fact he was timing my speech, and nothing could be more valuable.

Mr. Kaufman: I have had occasion before to point out that the hon. Gentleman is my representative in the House. He represents some areas in London which are extremely badly housed, and instead of being amused by what my hon. Friend has said he would do better to support him on the matter.

Mr. Davis: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity later rather than now. Certainly, he has these problems in Marylebone, as we have in all the Inner London boroughs, and the question of homelessness is by no means confined to London. Why have we not had the opportunity to debate it? Because of shortage of time, because the Government's legislative programme has been so immense? They have wasted a lot of time in debating a number of issues that are largely irrelevant. The Greve Report is to be published very


shortly, perhaps during the recess. What assurances shall we have that there will be adequate opportunity to debate the Report, affecting each one of us, certainly in the urban areas, when we come back? The local authority in my constituency has cut down on its provision for homelessness. We see in our surgeries how this situation affects people, in the anguish written across the faces of those who come to see us and who feel bitter because nothing is done.
We have not yet debated the Francis Report. The Government have said that they must study it in depth, but it is now two or three weeks since it was published. The recess would give us an unusually good opportunity to debate this matter, which will affect many millions of people.
We are told that there are 500,000 furnished tenancies in the country, but that estimate is based on the 1966 census. The probability is that there are very many more than that now. There is no doubt that uncertainty affects a very large number of them. Many of the tenants, as has been conceded by the Minister, are uncertain whether their dwellings are furnished or unfurnished, because the law is uncertain. The matter demands urgent attention, but the Government say that they must go on pondering a Report which by now they could have understood and formed a judgment on. That is to be denied us for a further period.
I turn to another very urgent issue concerning the conduct of the Metropolitan Police. Many of us have become aware that a minority of the police in the metropolis do not abide by the Judges' Rules. This has attained a certain degree of notoriety with regard to a case that I cannot go into because it is sub judice. What I can say about the inquiries governing that case, namely, the one at Barnet, is that a very large number of people were detained and subsequently released but denied the opportunity to consult their legal advisers. This is a matter of current concern which we should be debating, but which the Government have found no time for us to debate. The Easter Recess would have enabled us to debate it.
It is a matter of grave concern when civil liberties are impaired in this way. The way in which the police carry out

their functions is a matter of vital concern to all of us. As a practising member of the legal profession, I have always believed that by and large the police in this country perform their duties in a way which is a great credit to them. One of the ways in which we in this democratic assembly can ensure that is by probing, inquiring and rooting out difficulties.
I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department has returned at this point. It is by probing in this way that we can assist the cause of civil liberty. The recent occurrences at Barnet are a grave reflection upon the police officer who was carrying out the inquiries. I hope that the Government will conduct an investigation into the situation there. A number of my professional colleagues have complained to me that they were personally affected by that officer's conduct, because he categorically refused to allow them to see their clients.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot go into the details of that case in this debate.

Mr. Davis: I respect your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the point I am making is that because this is a matter going on now the House should have an opportunity to debate it during the period occupied by recess.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner) was proposing to raise the matter of an announcement today, I understand, but I gather that he has been obliged to see some very important people and has been called away. It has been announced that a fund is to be established to cover people affected by the collapse of Vehicle and General. I do not know the details, and I believe that it would have been appropriate for an announcement to be made in the House today. The news could have been made available to us. There are many people all over the country deeply affected by the collapse, and we should have had a statement and an opportunity to debate the matter, but there will be no time. I have had many letters from constituents who are aggrieved by the situation, as many other hon. Members on both sides will have done. Our constituents want to know what their rights are, and it is a matter of urgent


importance. I am told that the fund will not extend to deal with damage to property belonging—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We do not want to go into the full merits of that matter either.

Mr. Davis: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am not going into the merits of the argument, but merely seeking a reply from the right hon. Gentleman, trying to draw his attention to the urgency of the matter so that he can tell us whether we shall have a debate on the matter, possibly during the Easter Recess. If I may complete the sentence, I will then leave the matter. The situation is that third parties whose property has been affected by uninsured drivers are uncertain about their position. I gather that the fund will not extend to cover that. It is important that the Government should make their position clear since hitherto it has been unclear. The Government should now rush to the House to make it clear that they will support such a fund and will make a statement at the earliest possible opportunity to clarify the position for those unfortunate people who have suffered through no fault of their own.
I refer lastly to the growing problem of unemployment. We all know that the figures are rising daily and no doubt will rise during the recess. When are we to be given an opportunity to hear the Government's policies on the reduction of unemployment? So far we have heard nothing. The Government seem to be paralysed. Perhaps that is what they meant when they said they would deal with unemployment "at a stroke"—total paralysis.
Will the right hon. Gentleman in reply tell the House what is to happen during the recess. Will the Government announce policies then, or before the House rises? When will we be given an opportunity to debate these matters? This affects 800,000 and more people who are suffering torment—because that is what unemployment means. The Government have shown a total lack of concern for the human considerations governing this terrible crisis in a person's life. It is a scandal that in these circumstances this House should be putting the importance if its recess above the liberties of those people who are so adversely affected.

6.12 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) and others have sought to criticise the fact that I have sought to remain alone on the Front Bench to reply to this debate. Surely this is reasonable. As a member of the Cabinet I am collectively responsible for all matters raised, and as Leader of the House I am entirely responsible for all the matters which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule to be in order about the length and timing of a Recess Motion. If I am responsible on both those fronts it would not seem unreasonable that I should reply to this debate.
I do not pretend that I shall know all the answers to many points. Very few right hon. Members and hon. Members would be unwise enough to pretend they knew all the answers, but I am entitled to feel that on this Motion I should reply to the debate. Had I wished to have any of my right hon. Friends with me on this occasion, I would have asked them to come along and help me, but I felt that I should handle the matter myself.

Mr. John Mendelson: Nobody was making the charge that as a member of the Cabinet the right hon. Gentleman was constitutionally not entitled to reply. We wanted the right hon. Gentleman to be fortified by some of his colleagues so that he should know more about the answers that he is now saying he will know when he comes to deal with the points which have been made.

Mr. Whitelaw: But I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that I said no such thing. I said that nobody in this House would be so unwise as to pretend that he knew all the answers. I did not go so far as to say that I did not know any of them, which is what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting. That is a rather different matter.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), supported by the hon. Members for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), Penistone and Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) raised the question of statements made by Lord Cromer, and indeed by Lady Cromer. The first point that must be


made is that an ambassador is the representative of the British Government abroad. Some hon. Members have suggested that he is a representative of the British people, but that is not the position. Constitutionally an ambassador represents the British Government—[Interruption.] I am simply stating the constitutional position as a starting point so that it should be plainly on the record because that is the situation under all Governments. I do not think anybody will dispute it.
I am entitled to resent some of the accusations which have been made against Lord Cromer. I would remind the House that he has had a distinguished record of service to his country. When I hear criticisms made about Lord Cromer during his time as Governor of the Bank of England, I reply by saying that I would be surprised if any senior Ministers in the previous Government were likely to have criticised what Lord Cromer did for his country when he was Governor of the Bank of England.

Mr. Kaufman: I would not wish to contradict the right hon. Gentleman were it not for the fact that there are on record from senior members of the previous Government criticisms of Lord Cromer's conduct, unfavourable comparisons being made with his predecessor Sir Leslie O'Brien.

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not think there were many criticisms of much that he achieved on behalf of the previous Government when he was Governor of the Bank of England. That was the matter to which I was referring.
If I may take up what was said about various comments made by Lord Cromer, I would not think that some of the material quoted by the hon. Member for Ardwick as coming from Lord Cromer are very different from those which were made by the present Leader of the Opposition when Prime Minister and by many members of the Labour Government in advocating their prices and incomes policy. I respect the fact that the hon. Member for Penistone did not like that policy, but that was what the Government and the leaders of Government were saying at that time and some of the remarks were in much the same context. Some of the criticisms

of Lord Cromer were extremely unfair, and on behalf of the Government I wish wholly to repudiate them.
When it comes to Lady Cromer, I would make it clear that her remarks were made at a private tea party and I understand have been quoted wholly out of context. It is only fair to Lady Cromer to say that that is the fact. The hon. Member for Ardwick may consider that his remarks are justified, and he is entirely responsible for what he says in this House. All I am saying, in controverting what he says, is that Lord Cromer has a distinguished record as somebody who has served in many capacities with great skill and with benefit to this country—

Mr. Kaufman: And the Tory Party.

Mr. Whitelaw: —and one is entitled to say that.
I now turn to the remarks of the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), who spoke about the National Health Service charges Orders, as did the hon. Member for Fife, West. I made clear in answering the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition last week that there would be discussions through the usual channels on the amount of time which would be made available for a debate on these Orders, and I said that it would not be the normal time devoted to a Prayer but longer. Since the discussions on the length of the debate and the timing are now taking place, I cannot at the moment say exactly when or how long that debate will be. But I can give one assurance for which I was asked, namely, that the debate will certainly be longer than the normal time on a Prayer. If the time to be allotted were to be the normal amount of time on a Prayer I could have allowed for a debate when the Orders were introduced, but if there is to be extra time devoted to such a debate I hope that the House will await an announcement as to the outcome of the discussions.
I note what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) about the problem of railway commuters, and I will see that his remarks are passed on to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries.
The hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie) and others asked


about the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. I have promised that this Select Committee will be set up and I stand absolutely by my promise. As it happens—I do not think that he will mind my saying this—I had the opportunity of a personal conversation about the work of the last Select Committee with our former colleague, Tom Steele, because I wanted to acquaint myself fully with its work. My intentions are therefore clear. I am taking an interest in this Select Committee and I wanted to find out from Mr. Steele, to whom I pay considerable tribute for his work as Chairman, how he felt the Committee should work in future and about other factors, including its membership. I cannot say exactly when it will be set up, but, as I have said before, now that Scottish Members are perhaps less closely engaged in legislation than they have been during recent weeks, the Committee will be set up very soon. I stick to that promise. I cannot say whether it will be before or after Easter, but I will make it as soon as reasonably possible.
My hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) raised the question of the pamphlet about the Common Market. As I pointed out earlier today, there has recently been a great demand—and here I agree with the hon. Member for Fife, West—for more information about the E.E.C. Indeed, the demands have come in perhaps the strongest terms from those who openly say that they are opposed to the project. It seemed therefore right that this desire for information should be met. As a result, the Government are making available, as they did during the 1961–63 negotiations, factual pamphlets about the Community in answer to the requests for information. I assure my hon. Friend that they will be factual and that they will be put out in exactly the same way as they were put out during the 1961–63 negotiations.
The hon. Member for Fife, West asked me whether a pamphlet would be put out during Easter week. I understand that the answer is, "No". The broadsheets are being issued at roughly fortnightly intervals. It is planned, therefore, that the next one should appear about April. If the hon. Gentleman will

work out the timing from his calendar, he will see that it is unlikely that the pamphlet will come out during the Easter Recess. The second pamphlet will be entitled, "How the Common Market Works". The third will appear about the 22nd April and will be concerned with the background to our application for membership.

Mr. Body: But my right hon. Friend surely recognises that there is a distinction between the situation in 1961 and that of today, and that Parliament now requires commercial criteria to be applied to the operations of the Post Office. Are the Government paying the Post Office now for these deliveries? Will the service be available to others to put out factual documents about the E.E.C.?

Mr. Whitelaw: I will check up on the facts about payment and let my hon. Friend know. But the principle of the matter is that hon. Members want the information—indeed, they are constantly demanding it—to be as widespread as possible. This is the most effective method of reaching as many people as possible, and I would have thought that it would receive the warmest support of my hon. Friend.
The hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) raised some points about the short debate on steel which we had last week and some of the questions that were asked during it. In fairness to my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry, I remind the House of what he said then in reply:
Shortage of time prevents me from making reference to the many individual and constituency points raised during the debate but, as hon. Members will understand, we shall be giving them careful study when they are available in the OFFICIAL REPORT."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1911; Vol. 813, c. 1723.]
These latter words have not been mentioned in the debate and it is important for me to put my hon. Friend's statement in context.
The hon. Member for Penistone said that on the whole he would have preferred my hon. Friend to have spoken for longer rather than have heard backbenchers. There is a great dilemma in a short debate like the one we had on steel. Obviously, we all wish to give as many hon. Members as possible the opportunity to voice the anxieties of their constituents and make their contributions.


But it is fair to point out what my hon. Friend said on that occasion.

Mr. John Mendelson: This is a fundamental point. I said that we did not want a Minister to use as an excuse for not replying to important detailed questions the fact that he thought that he did not have enough time. That is rather different from saying that I told the House that I would prefer a Minister to speak rather than back-benchers. I am not, however, prepared to pay the price that a Minister should evade answering details and merely read a Civil Service brief just because he says that there is shortage of time.

Mr. Whitelaw: That is a slight change in direction in the point made by the hon. Gentleman, but I note what he says I would not accept his description of my hon. Friend's speech. All the points made in the debate will be carefully considered, and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friends will be in touch with hon. Members concerned in these matters.
I turn now to the specific points raised by the hon. Member for Motherwell. First, the question of closures is rightly a proper matter for the commercial judgment of the British Steel Corporation. As it has said, the decline in steel orders has led to the speeding up of closures, and these closures are recognised as necessary for the future prosperity of the industry. Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the Corporation has a careful and elaborate system for giving warning and for consultation, and this will be carried on.

Mr. Lawson: The point I want the right hon. Gentleman to answer is that present difficulties confronting the industry should not be utilised as a means of speeding up rationalisation and in doing so departing from the agreed way in which these things were worked out. Although the Corporation has to exercise commercial judgment, it operates very much under a policy laid down by the Government.

Mr. Whitelaw: I have given the hon. Gentleman an assurance to the best of my ability. If there is anything further that I can give, I will bring the matter to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to do so, perhaps he will have a talk

with me later and I might be able to help.
The hon. Member for Fife, West raised the question of the South African mission in this country. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has made the position clear. I have nothing basically to add to what he said, except to reaffirm that there is no question of any commitment by the British Government to any arms sales other than the Wasp helicopters already announced. Any further announcement—if any—would, of course, be made to this House. That is the assurance which my right hon. Friend made clear and which I take the opportunity to reaffirm now.
The hon. Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) referred to the operation of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. In answer to the hon. Member for Hackney, Central on Tuesday, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave the answer when he said:
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has explained to the House several times that the local authorities have been given very comprehensive guidance on what is required under the Act, that he proposes to give them the reasonable time that is required, because of the reorganisation of the whole of the social services now going on in local government, in order to implement it, and that he will make the necessary order at the appropriate time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd March, 1971; Vol. 814, c. 249.]
I cannot add to that.

Mr. Weitzman: A promise was made by the Secretary of State in December last year that the Order would be made shortly after 1st April. It is now postponed to 1st October. Why?

Mr. Whitelaw: The answer of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister makes that position perfectly clear. When the hon. and learned Gentleman reads what I have said, I think that he will find that that is so.
The hon. Member for Penistone mentioned redundancies in the steel industry particularly affecting his constituents. I cannot guarantee that there will be a statement on the subject next week, but I will certainly call the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to the points made by the hon. Member. Naturally, if some statement on future policy is to be


made and is ready, it will be made next week, but I cannot guarantee that it will.
The hon. Member mentioned the RB211. As he knows, negotiations are now proceeding in the United States, and it would be wrong for me to say anything one way or the other, except to reiterate what I said in answer to a debate about ten days ago. I made it perfectly clear that the Government were anxious to negotiate a workable and economic contract; that remains our position. As I promised during business questions, if the negotiations are concluded there will naturally be a statement on the matter before the recess.
The hon. Member for Hackney, Central referred to homelessness and the Francis Report and uncertainty. He would be the first to agree that my right hon. Friend gave some indication of the Government's attitude to major points in the Francis Report at once in order to remove the sort of uncertainty which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I note his request for a debate, but I cannot say when it will be.
The hon. Member referred to the Metropolitan Police. Clearly, some of the matters which he mentioned are sub judice.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Not the matters to which I referred; the matters to which I specifically did not refer.

Mr. Whitelaw: Knowing the hon. Gentleman's profession, I should have chosen my words more carefully. He would be the last to refer to any matters which were sub judice. It is only laymen like me who make these unfortunate remarks. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave some answers to the hon. Gentleman on these matters on 18th March. I note his request for a further statement and, if my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary considers that one should be made, there will be an opportunity.
The hon. Member also mentioned the Vehicle and General Insurance Co. I am informed that the British Insurance Association has today put out a statement on the matter. It is entirely its responsibility and not that of the Government. It has made the statement and that is why there was not a statement in the House.
The hon. Member mentioned unemployment. He would be the first to agree that all matters concerning the economic

situation may properly be raised during the Budget debate for several days next week. There are clearly opportunities for such discussions before the recess.
I do not expect there to be any major policy statement about Rhodesia during the Easter Recess.
I think that I have answered to the best of my ability all the points mentioned by hon. Gentlemen. I do not know whether it is something to be proud of, but it is a fact that as Leader of the House I am now responsible for the shortest recesses at Christmas and Easter for a very long time. Whether I shall continue on this basis remains to be seen, but it is a fact that it was the shortest Christmas Recess for a long time and the shortest possible Easter Recess for a long time. On that basis, the Motion is reasonable and I ask the House to accept it.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Fred Peart: The Leader of the House claims to have been responsible for two short Recesses. I ask him to be careful; events change quickly, as I know to my cost. It may be a good thing for hon. Gentlemen opposite, who have now been the Administration for nearly a year, to have a long rest to refresh themselves so that we may have better administration.
My hon. Friends have forcefully raised a number of issues. There is no doubt that the Government must realise that many matters require urgent attention. I hope that the Lord President of the Council will not be too sensitive about what my hon. Friends said about our ambassador in the United States. After all, the ambassador and his wife must be extremely cautious, careful and above suspicion. I was rather surprised by the reports of speeches I saw in the British Press. If there is to be no recall they will at least have learnt their lesson. They must be extremely careful. The ambassador to the United States is a very important person and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) argued so well, we have a special responsibility in the Vietnam situation. It was right to draw the matter to the attention of the Government, and no doubt the Foreign Secretary will note what has been said.
I am glad that the Leader of the House has given his assurance about the debate


on the National Health Service charges. In response to a question by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, he said previously that the debate would be much longer than the normal one and a half hours, and we thank him for it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) rightly mentioned the problems of the Greater London area affecting housing and homelessness and referred to the Francis Report. The Leader of the House has promised to report what was said to the Ministers responsible.
There are other matters which I should have loved to debate, such as food prices and rising prices generally. No doubt there will be an opportunity to discuss those in the Budget debate next week. The problem of unemployment, too, may then be debated. The Leader of the House and I represent the Northern Region where unemployment is extremely serious and may well get out of hand. I should like to know what the Government's policy will be. We shall wait for some indication from the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Budget de bate. Only then shall we be able to assess the Government's approach to the economy.
I was glad that the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body) pressed the subject of the European Economic Community. I do not know whether the pamphlets are to give any indication of how the common agricultural policy is working. This is not just a matter of the Treaty of Rome, or even of those parts dealing with agriculture. We are here concerned with administration. Judging by recent events in Brussels, there are some alarming developments.
Our farmers will be looking forward to these pamphlets in order to understand a little more what the common agricultural policy means and whether the Government will try hastily to get into the Community at all costs. In the meantime, the introduction of a levy system at home will force up prices and adversely affect our traditional suppliers; so I shall be interested in these pamphlets. If they are factual no one will complain, but it will be a different matter if they are propaganda.
I am glad that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) stressed the administration of the legislation dealing with the disabled and chronic sick. That legislation was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), supported by my hon. and learned Friend and others on both sides of the House. It was a milestone, a major attempt to do something for the sick and disabled. But so far there has been a lack of drive in the administration. I hope that the Lord President will take this matter up with the Minister and will use his great influence to see that something is quickly done.
On the important issues of steel and the RB211, I know that my hon. Friends will accept that the Leader of the House will make the necessary representations to each Minister and to each Department. The Lord President has said that he will do this. I know that he will. Therefore, although my hon. Friends have a free hand in this matter, I would advise them to allow the Motion to go through.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That this House at its rising on Thursday, 8th April do adjourn till Monday, 19th April.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.—[Mr. Monro.]

PROBATION AND AFTER-CARE SERVICE

6.41 p.m.

Mr. James Wellbeloved: It is fortunate that we have the opportunity to debate the probation and after-care service because of the inclusion in the Supplementary Estimates of certain sums of money for the Home Office in respect of the probation service.
As the House is probably aware—I know that the Under-Secretary is aware—negotiations are currently taking place with the Probation Officers' Association, and it is interesting to note that the representations from probation officers in respect of pay have the support of the employers in this particular section. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to tell the House that the clammy hand of the Treasury will not interfere with what appears to be an agreement between the two sides on this matter.
It would be wrong for us to go into great detail in this matter. I do not intend to press it other than to join with the Under-Secretary in wishing well to the negotiations and hoping that something will come out of them to the satisfaction of those who man this service.
In respect of the Estimates now before us, is the amount in these Estimates sufficient for the pay increase to be of such a nature that it is comparable with local authority social workers? One of the difficulties now facing the probation service is that, because of the implementation of the Seebohm proposals by local authorities and the setting up of directors of social services, social workers in local authorities are now receiving substantial salaries under that type of negotiating machinery. There is a draw for probation officers to leave the probation service and take higher remuneration in the local authority social services.
A recent survey in one probation area has indicated that of the people who have left the probation service in that area, 45 per cent. did so because the remuneration in social service work for local authorities gave them a very substantial increase. It is wrong for us to expect social workers, whether they be probation officers or others, to exist on below-normal levels of salaries and to be motivated and sustained in their work purely because they believe it is a vocation rather than a job. They must be paid some comparable salary. It is essential, if not in the current negotiations certainly within the foreseeable future, that there should be parity of remuneration between social workers who are employed by probation and after-care committees and those employed by local authorities.
It is interesting to note that there has been some pressure in the House with respect to the probation service over recent months, no doubt in preparation for this debate on the Supplementary Estimates. On 18th February, my hon. Friends the Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) and the Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) asked about the numbers employed in the probation service and any increases anticipated. The answer was that at the moment in the probation service there are some 3,426 officers, and the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary said that he hoped by 1975 to see that figure increased to 4,400.
We have a fear that because of the competitive situation that exists, the right hon. Gentleman will not achieve that desirable aim, and that we shall find that people who would be suitable for probation work will be drawn off into other fields. If he wants to achieve that increase, which we consider essential, he must do something about the general state of morale and remuneration in the probation service.
We have heard a lot during the last two years about law and order and that we must have a stronger system of policing because it is essential to meet the challenge being presented by the increasing crime rate. There is no difference between the parties in the House about the fact that it is necessary to meet this challenge to decent civilised society by those citizens who are greedy.


feckless, inadequate, destructive or immoral. It is no good saying that although we are about to increase the police force and stiffen the law, we are not going to be able to deal with this situation in any other way than by committing people to prison. It has been the tendency of Parliament to provide for non-custodial penalties in recent legislation, and we must place the greatest hope on that in dealing with this type of antisocial and criminal section of our community in the future.
Once a person gets on the downward slope, it is all very well to have sufficient police to grab a man by the collar and stop his downward slide. But it is to fixing up the foothold and giving support so that that person can climb back up the slippery slope and gain a position in decent society that we must attach importance. That is the work of the probation service, not only for those who are placed in its care by an order of a court, but also the after-care work that it does for released boys from borstal and people on parole from prison. We want to encourage all these things, not only from a humanitarian point of view, though that is a sufficiently strong reason to justify it, but perhaps, for those who take a harder view on penal reform, on the question of cost.
The hon. Gentleman, replying to a Question on 1st March this year, disclosed most illustrating figures. He was asked how much it cost to keep a person in prison per week. He gave the Answer that £23 was the average cost. That does not include the supporting cost of supplementary benefit, and so on, for the man's family while he is unable to support them.
If we have a decent probation service and if the courts are able, because of its strength, to use non-custodial penalties more and more frequently, that cost can be dramatically reduced. Although I have been able to acquire no reliable figures as to the cost of probation per person per week, it is estimated that it could not be more than £2 to £3, disregarding any supplementary benefits which the family may be drawing.
There is a strong case for the probation service to receive, not only the extra amount in these Estimates, but also whatever sums may be required from public

funds in future to ensure a fair deal at work for these devoted men and women who do so much to rehabilitate those who have fallen by the wayside and who can do so much to contribute to the national economy by enabling people to be placed on probation instead of being sent to prison. Parliament should not hesitate to give the Minister the support he needs in this matter.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Cox: I echo the comments my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Cray-ford (Mr. Wellbeloved) has made. I take part in the debate because the Government's decision on this issue could well affect many of my constituents. In my Division is one of our major prisons. I know from my contact with prison officers that they are very much in favour of any measures which will lessen the problems they have in Wandsworth Prison and, indeed, within the prison service generally, namely, overcrowding and conditions of work. Prison officers know that if the probation and after-care service can be strengthened this will help the prison service.
As I said to the Under-Secretary in a question last week, I accept that he genuinely wishes to see improvements in the prison service. I am equally convinced that at times he must be under a great deal of pressure from his colleagues in regard to the amount of financial help he would like to give to the prison service. We know that there is only so much money available and that there is much competition among Ministers for what they rightly regard as their priorities.
Many problems facing the prison and probation services receive scant regard. My hon. Friend referred to the salary structure. I have taken details of some of the salaries offered in advertisements in one of the London evening papers. There is an advertisement for a lady clerk at a salary of £1,000 plus, another for a male bookkeeper with some professional experience at a salary of £1,300 plus, another for a male credit control clerk at £1,600 plus. I am sure that with those salaries go many additional incentives.
Those in the probation service are not paid a salary commensurate with the educational standards they have acquired


from many years of study to do their job. I understand that it costs about £1,800 to train a probation officer. There has, unfortunately, been a great deal of wastage. I believe that 734 have left the service as against 1,800 entrants. This is most unfortunate because, although these people must have been aware that the salary structure was not overgenerous, they were sufficiently keen to enter the profession. We should be concerned to ask ourselves why people keen enough to join the profession and be trained leave after a short time.
My contacts with probation officers leave me with the impression that these people left with much reluctance but left basically because the basic salary structure would not enable them to live adequately and rear a family. My hon. Friend did not refer to the problem which exists in the Greater London area where probation officers who are married and wish to start a family must often pay very high rents. Their salaries do not enable them to seek mortgages from building societies or local authorities. This is another reason why probation officers leave the service.
There are many people in prison who should not be there. I must make it clear that I am not against prisons. I accept that there will always be a section of the community who will have to be locked up for society's good and also for their own good. About 13,000 male prisoners, however, are serving sentences of less than three months and, in addition, about 7,000 are serving sentences of up to six months.
A problem which has faced successive governments is the gross overcrowding in prisons, yet these figures show that 50 per cent. of the present prison population is serving sentences of less than six months. Many of these 20,000 male prisoners are not criminally minded but, unfortunately, many are socially inadequate. When I was in local government I was chairman of the Stamford House Boys Remand Home and came into contact with many youngsters who were sent there. I formed the impression that many people who are socially inadequate need an anchor to which they can turn to seek stability and to enable them to build up lives for themselves. The best person to do this is often the probation officer, which is another reason why we should

support the Minister in his efforts to bring about improvements in the salary structure.
The Minister may well say that he is sympathetic but that there are limits to the amount of money available. I do not make my next point as a party point, because I accept that the Department inherited this from the previous Government. We are now considering the amount of money available to improve the probation and after-care service, yet we are embarking upon a programme of redeveloping Holloway Prison at a cost of about £6 million. Over 1,000 of the present female prison population of 1,500 are serving sentences of less than six months which shows that there is a small percentage of women who could be termed hard core criminals.
It would be of greater benefit to society if it was decided that there are parts of Holloway Prison which need to be redeveloped for the close supervision of certain women prisoners but that the vast majority do not need close supervision; what they need is after-care hostel services and a development of the probation service; therefore, the majority of the money should have been spent on that. I do not know whether there has been time for the Department to reconsider the decision to go ahead with these proposals, but I should have thought that there would have been time to reconsider this proposal.
I therefore hope that the Under-Secretary will inform hon. Members on both sides who genuinely concern themselves with these problems and wish to help his Department to overcome them, and will also provide an incentive to those already in the probation service to remain in it and to others to enter it. The more recruits we can get the more will the relative overall expense be reduced, and that will benefit not only the Department but the country.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Greville Janner: I, too, have a prison in very close proximity to my constituency. Leicester prison boasts the highest walls of any prison in the country, and its population includes some of the most difficult and, in some instances, most dangerous of prisoners. The prison officers there, particularly in the special security wing, have a very nerve-racking time.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. Thomas Cox), my concern is to keep down the number of those who have to go to prison and those who return to it after release, but I differ from him in one respect. He talked quite correctly of the need for an increase in the number of probation officers. I understand that the Government have already indicated that the number is to be increased from 3,400 at the end of 1970 to 3,900 by the end of 1972, and to 4,400, possibly 4,700, by the end of 1975. Perhaps the Minister will confirm those figures.
What worries me, however, is not just the number of recruits but their quality. These people have one of the most difficult jobs in our society. I have had the privilege of going out with them and seeing them at work, and I wonder at their patience and calm and care. They run considerable dangers, and they, too, have a fairly nerve-racking time. Their case load is far too high. They are, in the main, magnificent people.
I have received a petition signed by 24 probation officers in Leicester. They have not only put their names to it but have given me permission to let the Minister have this document in due course. I hope he will read it with care, and give it sympathetic consideration. What worries these good people is not just that the number of cases they have to deal with has increased but that they are competing with council social welfare departments, whose officers, though incredibly underpaid, still get more than probation officers.
It is all very well to say that a man must have a vocation to do the job, but that is no excuse for his wife and children not being financially looked after. That a man is good enough to be willing to work day and night is no reason for not paying him overtime for the longer hours he works. If hon. Members choose to sit through the night, that is our misfortune—we even rush to get elected to this place—but we cannot compare our situation with that of the unfortunate probation officer.
I wonder at the large number of people who are prepared to work in this excellent service, and I only hope that the Minister will give them more chance of catching up in the race for money in

which all Government Departments are engaged. It always seems to me to be unfair that people in departments where there are strong unions and strikes can occur can get the money, whereas such people as probation officers, who would never withdraw their labour, are left behind. They, with the old people and the chronically sick, are at the back of the queue for better pay.
I hope that the Government, which proclaim themselves—I believe, sincerely—as wishing to combat crime, and which have increased police officers' pay very considerably, will regard the probation officers as having very high status in the battle against crime. The dangers to our society represented by the increase in crime are desperate.
I hope that the Minister will enable us to take good tidings to those of our constituents who are probation officers and trying to prevent people from going to prison; and even to people who are in prison, because even the ladies of Holloway are entitled to much better treatment than they get.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: My purpose is not to say that a political issue is involved but to support my hon. Friends. The whole House will accept their basic hypothesis that a service which gives such a distinguished and valuable contribution to the life of the United Kingdom is one of the worst paid of all services. The plea that should go from this House should not be for topping up present salaries but for reappraising the situation so drastically and radically as for the first time to bring the probation officers' salaries within the ambit of those in comparable service.
It is nothing short of scandalous that people from whom we expect such skills, such qualities and such dedication should be within a salary range of about £970 to about £2,000. Such pay will make it extremely difficult for the Home Office to reach its target of 4,700 probation officers by the end of 1975 and, additionally, it will have to take into account the additional and more substantial tasks which the service may well have to bear in the near future.
Each year we come nearer to the necessity of applying our minds to the question of non-custodial penalties. The whole


idea of imprisonment is, in a sense, extremely ironic: the more anti-social the behaviour of the offender, the more necessary it is for him to be withdrawn from society—placed outside its walls, as it were—in order that he may be rehabilitated as a complete and full member of that society, and brought back into it. That is an irony which no civilised community has succeeded in eliminating. We are not concerned at present with the philosophical problem, but I apprehend that in the very near future we shall have to face its essentials because of the physical pressures which will make reappraisal necessary.
On 4th March last the Under-Secretary of State replied to two Parliamentary Questions I put down relating to the prison population. The replies reveal a very grave and desperate situation. They show that by the end of 1974 the estimated prison population will be no fewer than 50,000, and that by that time it is expected that no fewer than 17,500 prisoners will be sleeping two or more to a cell.
It means that all the progress, the effort and dedication that has been going on to bring about a liberalising régime over the last few years will come to nought. About seven years ago the number of persons sleeping two or more to a cell was about 5,500. There is ground for fearing that two years from now the estimates will be considerably higher than 50,000 because these estimates have to be revised upwards with alarming rapidity. Very shortly we shall be driven by the logic of necessity to a situation in which we shall have to consider the imminence of substantial developments in non-custodial sentences.
Whatever development is envisaged, it is almost inevitable that it will be built around the work of the probation service. Therefore, I would ask the Under-Secretary to say whether that calculation of the figure of 4,700 has taken into account the necessity of this reappraisal which I maintain is almost inevitable. Even putting that consideration aside, there are other reasons, more immediate than that, for saying that there must be a rapid and substantial growth in the probation service.
The Wootton Committee which reported in June, 1970, on non-custodial and semi-custodial penalties made an excel-

lent recommendation in paragraph 187 in relation to the combination of a suspended sentence with probation. The House knows that under Section 3(1) of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, it is impossible to combine probation with a sentence in respect of the same offence. Section 39(2) of the Criminal Justice Act, 1967, specifically prohibits the making of a probation order in respect of a different offence when a suspended sentence is passed. I quote from the Wootton Committee, which says:
This provision reflects the view that to combine probation with a suspended sentence would be inconsistent with the principle of probation and that if offenders were given a suspended sentence in addition to probation they would be more likely to end up in prison if probation failed. We appreciate that the introduction into probation of the deterrent threat of a suspended sentence would not be wholly in accord with the British concept of probation as an alternative to rather than a suspension of punishment and that the offenders' consent to supervision could no longer be required if a suspended sentence were opposed. Nevertheless, it seems desirable to ensure that offenders subjected to a suspended sentence should not be deprived of any guidance or help of which they stand in need. This view was shared by officials from the probation service from whom we took oral evidence.
I shall be glad to have the views of the Under-Secretary on that.
As the Children and Young Persons' Act, 1969, comes into full operation it is inevitable that in the first stages, for some years at any rate, there will be more and more work for the probation service. Eventually, when the supervisory officers under the supervision provisions of the Act take over in respect of child offences some of this burden will be lifted from the shoulders of probation officers. I would not expect the net benefit of such provisions in relation to probation officers to take place for some two or three years.
There is another development to which we should apply our minds and it is one which has met considerable success in the United States. It is the appointment of street officers who assist young persons in some of the larger cities. From their day-to-day contact and making of associations with youngsters who would normally get into trouble with very little encouragement at all they gradually build up a bond of trust with these young people.
They are far removed from officers whom those youngsters would regard as


being in any way associated with the Establishment but from time to time they manage to de-fuse a situation. It is not to be hoped that these people are themselves able to lead these youngsters into more refined ways but they are there at the immediate point of trouble. The results shown are in the main extremely encouraging.
Finally it is obvious that there should be, and there is likely to be, a substantial increase and development of the hostel scheme and in after-care. It is monstrously ironic that after-care, which is the weakest point in a prisoner's rehabilitation, is in many cases a voluntary matter for the prisoner. The weakest link in the whole chain is made up of those days and weeks immediately following the man's discharge from prison. Anyone who has any contact with the courts knows how high a percentage of the offenders who are recidivists find themselves committing a second or subsequent offence within a matter of a month of their being discharged from prison. Surely the time has now come when we must consider making an after-care order compulsory so that such persons receive supervision from a probation order?
I am sorry to have delayed the House but I am sure that it is necessary that we should have this reappraisal of the whole system of salaries in the probation service. We should do it first because it is right, and also because it is necessary, and not least because in the very near future the service will prove to be of even greater and more vital consequence than it is at present.

7.16 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) for giving the House this opportunity of discussing the question of the probation service and probation officers' pay. I am particularly grateful to him, and congratulate him, on getting first place in the ballot so that we can discuss at this hour rather than much later had he had the misfortune to come out No. 8 in the ballot. I appreciated very much the speech made by the hon. Member and by his hon. Friends the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. Thomas Cox), Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville

Janner) and Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan). I am grateful for their approach to this subject.
It will certainly not surprise the hn. Member for Cardigan nor, I suppose, any other hon. Member if I say that I find myself largely in agreement with practically everything that has been said. The debate gives me the opportunity to pay my respects to the probation service and to say something about its work and the future which it may face in view of the alternatives to imprisonment which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central. I wish to say something, too, about the effect on the present manpower position and the future expansion of the service.
I shall say something about pay, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I can say very little a bout the current negotiations, not only because they are current, but because if I were to pursue that subject I should probably be out of order, as I understand that this Supplementary Estimate relates to the increased cost to the Home Office of the pay settlement implemented in April last year.
I agree that it is depressing to look at the projection of the possible prison population. The figures given are the best estimates which we in the Home Office can make of the likely numbers in the coming years, faced with the overall increase in the size of the population as a whole, with the increasing trend of criminality and with the increasing success of the police in managing to bring to justice a higher proportion of offenders. In view of the figures which I was able to give, we regretfully estimate that by 1974 the figure of 14,000 prisoners living two or three in a cell will increase to 17,500. For that reason, we are embarked on the biggest prison building programme ever, because we recognise the need to produce humane conditions in prison.
We are considering anxiously with a certain degree of success the question of finding camps and places of that nature which can more readily be turned into prisons. As the hon. Member for Cardigan will know from his experience at the Home Office, the trouble with building prisons is that, even if we started today and found several ideal sites, by the time


that we had succeeded in getting planning permission and all the necessary clearances and built them they could have no effect on the situation as it is likely to be in 1974 or 1975. We are doing our utmost to speed up the building of prisons in the process of being built to try to meet the problem.

Mr. Elysian Morgan: Does the hon. Gentleman's estimate of a prison population of 50,000 by the end of 1974 take into account the 20 schemes for building prisons and extending existing prisons which he announced on 18th March? Even if half a dozen new prison schemes were commenced, it would not be possible, within six to seven years, for those new building projects to alleviate the pressures.

Mr. Carlisle: I should not like to commit myself entirely because this matter is slightly outside the scope of the debate. I agree that if we brought new premises into the programme at this stage they would not alleviate the situation in the period mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. The estimate takes account of all the projects which I mentioned in my Answer last week, except that we have managed to bring in certain camps which will be able to relieve the situation earlier. If our search for further camps or places which can easily be converted is successful, it may have an effect on the figures, as may some of the things which I said in answer to the hon. Gentleman's other question about alternatives to imprisonment.
The probation service is small—the number of established officers is 3,381—but I believe that it will be accepted by everyone that it occupies a key position in the administration of justice. I am sure that I speak for everyone who has been involved with the administration of the courts when I say that it is in the unique position of being held in the highest regard by the judiciary of all ranks—whether it be the permanent judiciary or the lay magistrates. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the amount of work done by extremely dedicated bands of people who have succeeded in providing a service which has attained a very high standard of performance and it is my wish—and I say this in answer to the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West who talked about quality as well as quantity—to ensure that those high standards are

preserved and can be applied to any task which may be put on the probation service.
The work load of the probation service has increased enormously in recent years. There are about 80,000 people on probation. Last year about 50,000 new probation orders were made. There have been tremendous increases in the amount of work involved with the presentation of social inquiry reports to the courts. But in addition to the growth of what one might call the traditional tasks such as the supervision of offenders placed on probation, the service has in recent years assumed extended responsibility in the field of after-care—and I agree with what the hon. Member for Cardigan said about the importance of that—and new responsibilities as regards the parole scheme. I wonder whether the extent of the involvement of the probation service with the parole scheme is fully realised. I have always thought that the parole scheme has been proved to be one of the successes of the last Criminal Justice Act, introduced by the Labour Government.
As a result of that scheme, there are about 1,300 people on parole who would otherwise be in prison. During the last year the parole board released, I think, 2,200 prisoners. The point has been made about the saving in cost to the country as a result of those people not being kept in prison at the cost of £22 a week, probably with their families on social security, but instead partaking as members of the community.
However, we must accept that the implementation of the parole system has put considerable additional burdens on the probation service. The service has become responsible for filling welfare officer and social worker posts in prison department establishments. These posts are staffed by seconded members of the probation and after-care service. Our expectation is that the work of the probation service under all these various heads will, with one exception, continue to expand. The exception is in the supervision of the younger age groups of people up to the age of 14. The hon. Gentleman knows the Children and Young Persons Act far better than I or any other hon. Member, but I think I am correct in saying that under the proposals of the Government to implement the Act, which was passed by the


Labour Government the probation for those who are under 14 will eventually pass from the hands of the probation service to those of the child care officers on the staffs of local authorities.
I turn now to the additional burdens which will be placed upon the probation service by possible alternatives to imprisonment. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford pointed out that it was both humane and economically sound to keep people out of prison when one is able to do so. I do not think I am breaking any rule of order, Mr. Speaker, if I tell him that the Question which he has put down will receive an answer today, tomorrow or in the early part of next week.
The estimated cost of keeping a person on probation is £1 a week, against £22 estimated for keeping a person in prison. Therefore, the economy of keeping a person on probation rather than in prison is obviously of importance. It is not only an economic matter. I emphasise that probation is a humane form of relatively inexpensive treatment which is certainly not ineffective.
We are all concerned, as the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central is concerned, about the present state of overcrowding in our prisons. Imprisonment, as he realises and as the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford said, must always remain a penalty. Much criticism has been levelled at me from the benches opposite in the last week or two about the proposals of the Labour Government to rebuild Holloway Prison.

Mr. Greville Janner: Quite right.

Mr. Carlisle: Does the hon. Gentleman mean that the proposals are quite right?

Mr. Janner: Yes.

Mr. Carlisle: Whatever one may feel about the imprisonment of women, there will always be a proportion of the women offending population who will have to be sent to prison. Holloway is very old and needs to be rebuilt. I do not criticise the decision taken by the Labour Government that the rebuilding of Holloway is necessary, nor the intention to make it more hospital-orientated. The problem of imprisonment has to be tackled in two ways, first by providing more up-to-date prisons, and, secondly, by finding ways to keep out of prison those who can be dealt

with without being sent to prison at all. There may be among those detained in custody some who could instead be subject to another form of penalty. Although the decision in any individual case must rest with the court, it must fall to the Government of the day to provide to the courts possible alternative forms of penalty which make that end achievable.
One matter we are looking at is more variety in the type and frequency of probation, as has occurred in California. Secondly, we are looking at the provision of more hostels. It may be that additional measures should be taken to provide accommodation within the community for offenders who are subject to court order or who are under licence from custody. Lastly, there is the possibility of new forms of non-custodial penalty, involving inevitably the probation and after-care service. I have particularly in mind the report of the Wootton sub-committee of the Advisory Council on the Penal System on alternatives to imprisonment. I was asked specifically what was the Government's attitude towards that report, which makes a great many recommendations. We have made it clear that we are looking at all the recommendations, although we find some more attractive for practical reasons than others.
I hope that we shall shortly see back the deferred sentence as a power available to the courts. On the questions of probation hostels, more intensive probation and the main recommendation of community service, there are three working groups, including representatives of the probation and after-care service, looking into the practical problems involved in the possible implementation of those recommendations.
The hon. Member for Cardigan asked specifically what was my view—and I assume he wanted my personal view—on the suspended sentence being combined with a probation order. This was a recommendation of the Wootton Committee, and we are therefore looking at it. I add the warning that there is always the danger that the effect of implementing that recommendation might be that on each occasion a suspended sentence was given a probation order was made as well. One has to decide whether that is the best use of the resources and manpower of the probation service. The


working parties will be examining the practical issues raised by a scheme of community service by offenders, the better use of probation resources and the provision of accommodation within the community for offenders subject to court order or under licence from custody. They are now engaged in that work and will be reporting to the Home Secretary as soon as possible.
I turn, finally, to the effect this will have on the manpower position of the probation service. I mentioned the present figure of 3,381 established officers against an establishment figure of 3,500 by the end of 1970. The discrepancy is somewhat greater than the figures suggest, because the target of 3,500 was fixed at a time when the work load was not as heavy as it is now. The most recent estimate suggests that 3,900 whole-time officers will be needed by the end of 1972 and that, after allowing for expansion in existing tasks and the hoped-for increase in the number of offenders treated in the community, 4,700 whole-time officers may be needed by the end of 1975.
The hon. Member for Erith and Cray-ford, and other hon. Members, were good enough to mention that I had announced those figures on an earlier occasion both inside the House and in speeches outside. The Government accept those target figures, and the 4,700 includes provision for the hoped-for wider use of probation as an alternative to imprisonment. To carry out the existing tasks would require 4,400 probation officers, but we specifically allowed for the wider use of probation as an alternative to imprisonment.
To reach this target a big increase in the annual output of trained officers will be necessary. The expected output from training in 1971 will be 350, and the Government are planning to raise the annual training output to 550 as soon as possible. As the hon. Gentleman may know, we have already announced that 100 additional training places will become available in September this year in the polytechnics of Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. As these will be one-year training courses, another 100 trained officers will be ready to enter the service during 1972. As soon as possible we shall plan another 100 training places

to bring the total annual output up to 550.
I was asked by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central a question of fact about the numbers in the probation service and wastage. The overall increase in the probation service from the end of 1965 to the end of 1970 was 1,000. The current rate of wastage is, I think, 7·5 per cent., of which in the last year 46 per cent. went to take up jobs in other forms of social services.
As I said earlier, the pay of the probation and aftercare service is a matter on which I cannot say very much at the moment, although it is prescribed under the Criminal Justice Act by the Home Secretary. My right hon. Friend is guided in this matter by the recommendations made by the Joint Negotiating Committee for the Probation Service on which are represented the staff side, the local authority associations—the A.M.C. and the County Councils Association—the Central Council of Probation and After-Care Committees and the Home Office.
Probation pay was last revised with effect from 1st April, 1970, when the pay of the main grade officer was increased to a scale running from £975 to £1,851. Increases were also then granted to senior probation officers and officers of principal grade, so that the highest salary in the service became £4,200, or £4,950 for the Principal Probation Officer for the Inner London Area.
That was a 21-months agreement dating from April, 1970, until the end of 1971. But, as I am sure the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford knows, from his interest in the subject, it contained what might be called a break clause which provided for an interim review by the Joint Negotiating Committee, to commence in January, 1971, which could, if circumstances so warranted, lead to a revision of that settlement and salary scale at a date effective from 1st April this year. I think that it had specifically to have regard to any changes which had occurred since the beginning of 1970 which directly affected the salary structure of the probation service.
I feel that it would be quite wrong to go further than to say, in answer to the points raised by the hon. Members for Erith and Crayford, for Wandsworth, Central and, indeed, for Leicester,


North-West, who has just left, that the Home Office is aware of the argument advanced by the probation service relating to comparability with social service workers in other spheres. Clearly that is a matter which the Joint Negotiating Committee may feel entitled to take into account when considering whether such changes have occurred since the beginning of 1970 to justify any revision of the agreement which otherwise runs until the end of the year.
A sub-committee was set up by the Joint Negotiating Committee on 15th January to undertake this detailed review. That sub-committee met on 12th February and again on 15th March. Agreement has not yet been reached. I must emphasise that the review continues, and I must also make it quite clear that there is no question, as has been suggested in some quarters—not in the House today—of a breakdown in negotiations, although I cannot forecast what the outcome will be.
I have attempted to answer all the points which have been raised. I have dealt with the point about comparability and the need to deal with people by non-custodial methods. In the hope that the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West may read this, I should say about the petition which he has received that I shall look at it with interest if he will let me have it at the earliest possible moment because, of course, negotiations are taking place.
I end as I started. I thank the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford for the fair way in which he introduced the debate. I know that I speak on behalf of the whole House in again expressing the belief that the probation service is a valuable service which has a major part to play in the penal policy of this country.

7.46 p.m.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger: I am glad to have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that the House will not take too grave an exception to the fact that other duties prevented my being here as soon as I should have wished. I am glad that the business was prolonged so that I was able to come in, even at this stage.
I hope, too, that it will not be taken amiss to say that it would be a pity if no

voice from this side of the House was raised on this matter. I cannot assure the House that anything which I say will be quite as representative of the general policy of this side as my hon. Friend's speech, although it happens to be a matter which has closely concerned me for a long time.
I should like to see a complete change of emphasis and a total revision of concepts in the treatment of convicted persons and crime. This would involve a revolutionising of the financing of the penal system, and the probation service would be the prime beneficiary of everything that I would do. But my hon. Friend need not be unduly alarmed. I am sure that he will play some part in seeing that there is no danger of my having any finger in this pie, and the House can rest quietly in considering what I want to say.
I was interested to hear my hon. Friend admit, and I was sorry about it, that the probation service is a small service. It seemed a little inconsistent to regret how small it is and at the same time accept that it has a key position in the penal system. I should say that it was the second most important element in the penal system.
The element of prison is entirely negative, entirely sterile, and of value in only two respects: first, in keeping dangerous men out of circulation—I would keep them out of circulation much longer than they are at the moment—and, secondly, in the treatment of inadequates, which admittedly is a substantial, if not by far the largest, proportion of the criminal population. But in the treatment of inadequates after-care is more important than anything which can be done by way of treatment in confinement. After-care is properly part of the service which should be carried out by the probation service, or whatever we like to call it, because it involves human contact with the offender in his whole social context.
The great merit of the probation service is based on the proposition, which is fundamental in any realistic assessment of the penal system, that the purpose of that system is to protect society, and that the protection of society is best achieved by coming to terms with the fact that any offender, unless he is a major danger to society, is bound to spend more time out of than in prison. The best way


to protect society is to make sure that while the offender is out of prison, when he can harm society, he is kept most closely in touch with the values and behaviour of society.
I say that the probation service is the second most important element in the matter of delinquency and alienation. But the first most important element starts rather earlier. A valuable precept is that fences at the top of the cliff are more valuable than ambulances at the bottom. With all respect to it, the probation service is only part of the ambulance service element of the penal system, and the fences at the top of the cliff have to be erected much earlier.
There are some important parts which the schools can play, but the only really effective prevention of crime comes in considering the fundamental proposition that there is no such thing as a happy criminal. Therefore, of course, the first line of defence in crime prevention lies in mothers and fathers and the relationship between them and their children in the very early years of life. I merely say this because I said that the probation service was the second most important element and I should say what is the first.
So far as we have to accept that a large and increasing proportion of the population is at odds with society and with its values, then of course we will have an increasing problem which has to be coped with by the penal system through one method or another. I would have a complete change of emphasis and a total revision of concept.
If one looks at it morally from the most mundane point of view, of what it actually costs the community, as my hon. Friend said, the figures which he gave show that the probation service is not only, in my opinion, the most cheap but the most expensive way of coping with people in this kind of difficulty. I quickly jotted down what my hon. Friend said, and, if my arithmetic is not wildly wrong, one could double the service and double its pay at half the cost of what one would save by the prison places which would not be taken up.
That is an interesting matter for argument, but my way of working it out is roughly this. Since an effective probation

service has as its prime need an increase of actual numbers, one could work it out that one could get one probation officer per every four prisoners in prison and pay him £2,000 a year, and still save money. One could have one per 40 prisoners at one-tenth of the expense of keeping them in prison. One could have one per 20 prisoners and pay a probation officer £4,000 a year. We should think in these terms, because the kind of service which a probation officer can do is much more intensive and cheap than the comparatively perfunctory service which probation officers can perform with the kind of case load which they have to carry at present.
I was glad to note that my hon. Friend has such a sympathetic and warm attitude to the probation service. I am sure that it is the key to such reforms as he can make within the narrow and unsatisfactory confines of the penal system as it is. I know that we cannot say anything about their present pay claim, but I think that the present case load could be reduced in the proportion of one to 20, they could be paid £4,000 a year, and we would have a good bargain. However, we have four or five years of this Parliament, and another 15 or so of the next four or five Parliaments, so I hope that we shall move around to that.

RATE SUPPORT GRANT (GREATER LONDON)

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Before calling the hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins), who is fairly new in the House as I am fairly new in the Chair, I would point out that the Chair is in considerable difficulty in these debates in divining what is in order and what is not. I am advised that it is not in order to talk about the general field of the present provision—for example, that one must keep the debate to the Supplementary Estimate and the purpose for which that is to be used and not range over the entire field. I do not know whether the hon. Member will be able to do that. I think it will be difficult, but I hope that he will do his best.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger: On a point of order. In that case, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should say that I think you have been more than kind to me.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That was more because I was collecting myself than out of absolute kindness.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. Eric Deakins: I want to draw the attention of the House to the item on page 207 of the Estimates for 1970–72, Class VI, No. 8, Rate Support Grants to Local Authorities, increased provision of £2,880,000,
… to take account of increased prices, costs and remuneration since the Rate Support Grant Increase Order, 1969, Statutory Instrument 1969, No. 1806.
I want to mention the effect of increased prices and costs on local authorities in the Greater London area and the effect of this increased provision.
Every hon. Member will be aware of the importance of the rate support grant for local authority expenditure and also that we live in a time of inflation. Whether or not it is the raging inflation which some hon. Members have claimed in recent debates I do not know, but it is certainly an inflation of costs and prices which has severely affected local authorities, particularly those in the Greater London area. I would suggest that increased provision of less than £3 million, which I work out at about a sixth of one per cent. of the original rate support grant, is nowhere near sufficient to cater for their needs.
This is particularly so in London, because the Greater London boroughs have certain powers which boroughs in other parts of the country do not have—or not to the same extent. In London we are particularly concerned about the rising costs of wages and salaries, and also the rising costs of building materials. If this is all that local authorities can expect, it is a very poor look-out for the future of local authority services.
We know that there has been a great deal of inflation in the last few years, and since this provision was first estimated inflation must have added tens of millions of pounds to the costs of these authorities. Yet we are talking only of a further increase of nearly £3 million. If this is the final story on the rate support grant for 1970–71—

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I am trying to follow the hon. Member.

I am not certain of his reference to a mere increase of £3 million.

Mr. Deakins: It is the further increase, the increased provision in the Table on page 207. It is £2,880,000. My point is that this will strengthen the tendency for local authorities in the Greater London area in default of any greater increase in their rate support grant to cut back on their services. Indeed, they have only two alternatives. Either they must accept the full burden on the local rates of the increased prices, costs and remuneration of the past year, or they must cut their services. Some local authorities, including the one in which I am particularly interested, Waltham Forest, have taken the second alternative in an attempt to keep the rate element of their expenditure fairly stable. I will not go into the reasons why it has tried to do this in election year, but all local authorities, whatever their political complexion, have been struggling against this burden of rising costs.
The problem is such that they are no longer capable of solving it without greater provision from central Government by means of the rate support grant. I will not explain what has been done in my borough in this connection, except to point out that we used to pride ourselves on our welfare services. They have been cut, not severely but in a penny-pinching fashion, and this has resulted in the cream being taken off the cake—for example, making it more difficult for old people to attend chiropody sessions and things of that kind.
Even the amount spent on keeping streets clean—a basic service one would have thought—has been cut in my borough, and in the opinion of many citizens our streets are a disgrace. The attitude of the council has been, "If we cannot get more money from central funds, we will have to penny-pinch as much as possible to try to keep the rates down." Although an understandable attitude, my hon. Friends and I do not share it and we feel that the Government could have given more help.
Increased prices and costs have meant local services costing substantially more in the last year, and I appreciate that they have also gone up for other organisations. If the rate support grant is at an


end for this year and there is to be no additional supplementary provision, then the process of cutting local services will, I am afraid, continue.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Has Waltham Forest found it necessary to increase its charges for services rendered in, say, the public library system and the welfare services, as has been the case with other London boroughs, and what effect has this had on the welfare services?

Mr. Deakins: Each London borough must make up its mind about the action it will take against this background of rising costs. Waltham Forest has not increased its library charges, but there have been increases in charges for certain welfare services and these have particularly hit some senior citizens and children; for example, some charges at swimming baths have gone up.
The effect of the cuts to which I have referred has not meant a large saving in the aggregate over the borough as a whole. However, these cuts indicate the attitude of some local authorities in the London area in the face of rising prices and costs and their reluctance to increase rates, particularly in election year.
In the wider context of services for people living in London, these may be considered to be rather minor points, but I come to the issue of housing, which is probably more important in London than in any other conurbation. My local authority, like many others, has a long waiting list. More than 6,000 names are on the housing list, and each name probably represents a family. If the rising costs of building materials adversely affect the ability of local authorities to build houses, the effect on—

Mr. Graham Page: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am in some difficulty. As you pointed out earlier, we are dealing with the rate support grant. Housing expenses do not come within this province. I am wondering, therefore, whether I shall be obliged to reply to the points which the hon. Gentleman is now making.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I appreciate the Minister's difficulty. I am sure that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins) appreciates how irritating

it is for a Minister if when he comes to reply to a point he is told that he is out of order, possibly because the Chair missed something earlier. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will assist me.

Mr. Deakins: Certainly, and I will not pursue this housing question further, except to reiterate that if the rate support grant is inadequate local authorities are obliged to look at all the services they provide in an endeavour to make savings.
As we are speaking of less than £3 million to finalise the grant for 1970–71—this must be so at this late stage of the year—my local authority will be confirmed in its feelings that there is no more to be hoped for from central funds, which means that some services will have to be cut.
I hope I am in order in referring to education, because the rate support grant covers some current expenditure for education and loan charges paid by local authorities on loans raised for educational building. This, too, is an important service, not only in London but throughout the country.
It is particularly important in urban areas where schools are old, some dating back to the nineteenth century, and others which are badly sited with inadequate accommodation and bad facilities. In many instances there is insufficient housing provision for the teachers who are required to work in those schools.
We need to rethink the way in which the rate support grant is used to finance local authority services. I understand that some suggestions for reforming local government finance will be before the House later this year. We must ensure that sufficient money comes from central funds to enable local authorities to carry out the tasks for which they were elected, and education must be almost the most important one.
In many greater London boroughs the education service is important not only in itself but for remedying the deficiencies of an inadequate home environment, principally caused by inadequate housing. At a time of rapid inflation, local authorities have a job to even stay still in their education provision. Indeed, they must spend more to provide the same services.
With the school population increasing, particularly in secondary schools, it is essential that local authorities are not restricted in their ability to provide not only good education services but improved ones, and only an adequate rate support grant from central Government can make this possible.
I am particularly concerned in my borough with the inadequate provision of nursery schools. We have only two in the whole borough, though I regard it as equally shocking that there are only 29 in the whole of the greater London area. Nursery school provision, financed through the rate support grant, is an area where local authorities can do more than in any other way to remedy the deficiencies in the environment of many citizens' children.
If it is impossible for local authorities to build as many nursery schools as they like, it should be possible for them to encourage the development of play groups, and my local authority has started in a small way to do this. But much more remains to be done and the Government seem unaware of the need to allow local authorities to spend more on those parts of the education service which will most benefit children.
We must rethink the whole of local government finance. This is not the occasion to go into that, but one cannot avoid the conclusion, when discussing this increase in the rate support grant, that our present way of financing much local authority expenditure is inadequate.
We hope that, under the provisions of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970, local authorities will be able to provide much better services for those who are physically handicapped or chronically sick, but, again, their ability to do that will depend on the amount of money which the central Government make available through the rate support grant. Care for the chronically sick and physically handicapped, a service operated at local level, ought to be the subject of national provision, with national standards.
Many of us on this side have signed an Early Day Motion put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) urging the Government to give early implementation to the provisions of Section 1 of

his Act. But this will entail expenditure by local authorities on a service upon which they have not spent money hitherto except through their welfare services. The Act will put greater burdens upon them. It has done so already for those local authorities with a social conscience, yet there is no sign in the present provision that account is being taken of that, yet this is an invaluable service for bringing new life to a section of the community which is, perhaps, the most under-privileged of all.
The problem is not confined to Greater London. When faced with a choice between restricting its services, putting up the rates or asking the central Government for more money, local authorities are put in a cruel dilemma. It is the Government's long-term policy to cut down in many ways on the amount of money which they pay to local authorities. This will have deleterious consequences, certainly in the Greater London area and, I am sure, for many local authority services elsewhere. Housing, in particular, will be affected, and to a lesser extent the effect will be felt in many of the welfare services operated by larger local authorities.
What is a progressive local authority to do when faced with rising costs and increased wages and salaries for its staff and all those who are directly or indirectly employed by it? If it does not want to put up the rates, which is unpopular, or ask the central Government for more money, which it will not get, there is only one course open to it, to cut its services. But any progressive council elected on a programme for doing the best it can for its citizens will think most seriously before cutting any of its services. Unfortunately, however, this is happening in many of the Greater London boroughs.
I suspect that no local authority likes to cut any of its services. Whatever its political complexion, it does not wish to reduce the standard and availability of services to its citizens. Some local authorities have salved their consciences —rightly, in my view—by allowing the rates to increase this year. But they were, as I say, put in a cruel dilemma, and I sincerely hope that the same dilemma will not be forced on them next year by cuts in the rate support grant, which, we understand, is the Government's longterm intention.
We shall have to think further about the whole future of local government finance and the operation of the rate support grant. If the rate support grant is increased, as I and many of my hon. Friends would wish, it will be a charge on direct taxation. Many of us on this side—I regret that not all my right hon. and hon. Friends agree—believe that direct taxation is a progressive form of taxation, falling as it does on those who can afford to pay, and we should, therefore, welcome any extension of the rate support grant if it were financed out of direct taxation. By contrast, putting up the rates is to increase indirect taxation. This we should strongly oppose. At the same time, we have to be realistic—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going a little wide now.

Mr. Deakins: I shall bring myself back to the rate support grant, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If local government finance is to be reformed and the rate support grant is to be abolished—in which case we shall not be able to have a debate of this kind in future—the Government must bear in mind the need of boroughs like Waltham Forest for more rather than less money from the central Government. for otherwise the burdens on them will be too great, in deciding what services they must cut because of inflation of costs and prices year by year.
We have had a long battle about inflation and who is responsible—no doubt, it will continue for many more months—but we must not forget the innocent victims of that battle, of whom the local authorities are certainly one.
The Vote we are debating touches this problem in its reference to increased prices, costs and remuneration. Increasingly, unless we have local government finance right from the start, with a proper balance between central and local government, we shall not be able to continue even with the present level of local authority services, and this at a time when there is a demand from all citizens for better services—personal welfare, education, housing, and so on.
The local authorities have to spend more money. They cannot lay off men. They cannot stop building houses, they cannot stop improving, repairing and maintaining schools. They have to do all these things, yet, even if they do no

more than maintain their current activities, they face an increasing burden of costs.
Unless the rate support grant is increased in future far more than the provision we are now discussing, many of them will take the easy way out, as mine has done in Waltham Forest, and choose to cut services in order to save a small amount on the rates. This is socially regressive. In the long term it does not solve the problems of the people who live in the Greater London conurbation. In the future, and certainly for next year, the rate support grant ought to reflect that need in advance of the inflation of costs and orices so that local authorities, whatever their political complexion, may continue to do the job for which they were elected, that is, provide a decent standard of services in education, welfare, housing and the rest for the citizens who live in their area and support them.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Clinton Davis: In his very fair exposition, my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins) has posed the problem confronting local authorities because of an inadequate rate support grant, putting them in the position of having to choose whether to restrict services, ask the Government for more aid, or increase the rates.
Every member of a local authority is only too well aware of that problem. The answer to it depends largely on the political philosophy of the party in power in a local authority at any one time. As a result of the 1968 elections, the answer of Conservative local authorities has largely been to restrict services. In the few authorities still controlled by the Labour Party in Inner London, the answer has been somewhat different. I hope that after the May elections, when we shall have an opportunity to express our political philosophy because we shall be in power in Inner London, the answer will not be to restrict services, although we shall face a great dilemma because of the policies being pursued in Parliament.
The way in which rising prices emasculate local services can be exemplified by my own borough, but it is by no means on its own in this respect. I have previously said that my borough is spending in the current year about £40,000 less on providing for the homeless, when we are affected perhaps more than any other


Inner London borough by the problem of homelessness. I do not suggest that Conservative councillors in the London Borough of Hackney want to encourage homelessness. That would be a rash statement. But they look for the possibility of making cuts, and it occurs to them that perhaps dealing with the homeless does not produce a positive response from the electors, because it is dealing with a minority of people, and, therefore, is one of the things that should be slashed.
The Government should consider this situation very carefully, because if it happens in my borough I am certain that it occurs elsewhere. It is not only measures to deal with homelessness that are affected. Library services, chiropody services and a whole variety of work undertaken by local authorities are affected by diminished or inadequate Government support. The answer, though only a partial answer, is that if the Government are not prepared to do their duty in this regard—and they have a great moral and political duty—the local authority must take its courage in its own hands and say, "We must tell the electors quite categorically, 'The Government are not performing their functions properly, and your choice is either to have reduced services or better services, but if you have better services the rates must go up.'" The situation is absolutely analogous with the direct taxation position on the national scene.
The effect on the provision of housing in Inner London—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot deal with housing.

Mr. Davis: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but perhaps I may address a point to you and if I am out of order—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I simply want to save the hon. Gentleman time.

Mr. Davis: The point I was making is that the indirect effect of inadequate Government aid is such as to impinge on all the functions of local authorities. To that extent, since housing, in Inner London at all events, is the most important function of local government, it is necessarily affected, because a local authority must look at the financial situation in the round, and, although the rate sup-

port grant does not directly affect housing, the indirect effect is considerable.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to intervene, but we are likely to be in difficulties if we are not careful. I should remind hon. Members that this subject and the Estimates deal with the effect of increased prices and costs on the rate support grant. It is a very narrow debate. Questions of local government policy on services and so on are out of order.

Mr. Davis: I will take the coward's way out and not pursue the matter by trying to work out legal, technical arguments which might bring me within order. I accept your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did not intend my intervention to be of any length. To speak at length would be appalling after having been reminded only this afternoon that I had spoken for no less than 51 minutes in a recent debate. It would be an injustice to those who want to speak on other matters if I prolonged the debate.
Suffice it to say that I support my hon. Friend's criticisms of the Government for the inadequate assistance they are providing local government, particularly in the areas we represent in London. I only hope that this is not an indication of Government policy in the years ahead, though I fear that it is.

8.25 p.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I find it difficult to respond to arguments based on such a wholly false premise as the premise that the Government have reduced the rate support grant, the amount contributed by the taxpayer to the ratepayer. Talk about cuts in the grant is so remote from reality that it is difficult to start to explain the position to the hon. Members who have put their argument in that form.
The rate support grant for the coming two years—although we are not directly concerned with that in the Supplementary Estimates—is larger in absolute amount and in proportion to the local government expenditure than it has ever been. But the increase we are discussing is larger than any increase has ever been, and for a very good reason, which is that this Government were left with a situation in which they had to make the very large increased grants on


the previous grants. The figures are clearly shown in the Supplementary Estimates, Class VI, 8, where it is explained that the increase for the year 1969–70 is £7 million and that for the year 1970–71 it is £129 million.
These are substantial sums. The figure of nearly £3 million required by the Supplementary Estimate is at that small figure because already sums had been taken into account in the previous Estimates over and above the rate support grant. In other words, a first shot was taken in the estimates earlier in the financial year and this is the second or final shot which results in an addition of £3 million.
By means of these increase orders the rate support grant for two years is kept up to date. In regard to the relevant expenditure accepted by the previous Government in 1968, we have had to make these increases in order to keep up that figure—that is to say 57 per cent. of local government expenditure. In the new rate support grant we have increased the proportion to 5½ per cent. The Secretary of State is authorised to take into account any increase in prices, costs and remuneration which has taken place since the previous rate support grant or a previous increase order, whichever is the later.
I would draw attention to the fact that the Secretary of State is entitled to take into account only what has occurred. The hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins) asked that we should take into account in advance what local authorities might have to spend. This is not possible by law under the terms of the Local Government Act, 1966. The most the Secretary of State can do in making an increase order is in addition to taking into account what has already occurred in prices costs and remuneration; he can take into account an increase which can be clearly foreseen and quantified. But that is a difficult matter, and no such item was included in the increase order that we are discussing, which came into operation in December, 1970. That order took into account prices at November, 1970. It was fixed at the figures of £7 million and £129 million for the two years respectively after lengthy examination with the local authority associations.
I can say from my own knowledge of those negotiations that at the end the

local authority associations expressed themselves satisfied that, within the rules of the game, they had achieved what they had hoped to get and there was a feeling of agreement between the Ministry and the local authorities. The local authority associations collect the facts from their constituent bodies. It is they who diligently go to the local authorities and discover the real facts of expenditure and would take into account arguments such as those put forward today by the hon. Members for Walthamstow, West and Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis). They come to the Department of the Environment armed with those facts to argue them out with the officials and Ministers there.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I am not following the course of the discussion. What my hon. Friend is saying is that hon. Gentlemen opposite have been completely misinformed since the whole of their case depends on the fact that the rate support grant has gone down, whereas my hon. Friend is saying that it has been increased. If that is the case, why have hon. Gentlemen opposite argued as they have done today?

Mr. Clinton Davis: Our case is that the grant has been inadequate, which is quite different from what has been said by the Minister today.

Mr. Page: That was not exactly the case put forward by the hon. Gentleman. As I understood him, he was saying that the rate support grant had been cut.

Mr. Davis: Yes.

Mr. Page: If it is argued that it is inadequate, there is an argument for saying that the percentage should be increased and the proportion which the taxpayer contributes to the ratepayer should be increased, but that proportion has been increasing over past years and is now at a higher proportionate figure than it has even been before; indeed it is at a higher absolute figure than ever before; yet we have to keep it up to date by these increase orders.
The negotiations which proceeded prior to this increase order in December, 1970, came to the conclusion that the relevant expenditure of the local authorities had increased by £13 million for the year 1969-70 and £243 million for the


year 1970–71, and it was on those figures that the figure of 57 per cent. was taken as the increase in grant. These increases represented a 7·3 per cent. inflation during the period November, 1969, to November, 1970.
As I have said before, the Order is based on prices as in November, 1970, and includes the effect of the substantial autumn pay award to local authority manual workers. It did not take into account the police award, which has been made since and dated back. To that extent, there might be some complaint that it did not—indeed, could not—take into account fully the expenditure applicable to the year 1970–71. Nor did it take into account the teachers' award which is expected but has not yet been made and which will, one assumes, be dated back to a period prior to November, 1970.
But, even though these matters were not taken into account, we have not received any request for a further increase order. It would be most unusual to have an increase order again within a period of four months. This matter will be negotiated again during the summer, and no doubt by November or December we shall be laying before the House a further increase order in order to keep the rate support grant up to date. But it would be unusual for any further order to be laid within such a short period as that between December last and the present time. Nevertheless, if there were a serious condition, I have no doubt that we should receive a request from the local authority associations for a further increase order. I recollect that during the negotiations they said that they expected a number of wage awards which might be dated back, and that if there were a serious situation they would come to us before the end of the financial year for another increase order. They have not done so, and, therefore I presume that they do not find themselves in very grave difficulty at present.
I have spoken of the over all figures because it is not for my Department to allot the sums to Greater London or the London boroughs. All I can tell the House is the amount of the total increase in grant and give some indication of how

that increase was calculated as an over all sum. I will not trouble the House by reading it out but there is a clear list in Appendix I to H.C.173 on the Rate Support Grant (Increase) Order, 1970, which sets out the items where there has been an extra expenditure. One sees some rather large items for 1970–71, such as over £50 million for administrative, professional, technical and clerical staff; £59 million for teaching staff; £29 million for manual workers. These were the sort of figures which had to be taken into account in deciding what should be the right figure for the grant for that year.

Mr. Deakins: The Minister mentioned increased wages for manual workers, and he said earlier that the rate support grant under this Vote had nothing to do with housing. Are we therefore to assume that wage increases to manual workers of local authorities do not cover manual workers employed by direct labour building departments of local authorities?

Mr. Page: It is a little complicated. The figures are righted in the accounts by not taking account in the rate support grant of sums which are paid to the housing account, if I may put it briefly in that form. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Local Government Act, 1966, which states what is relevant expenditure and what is excluded from relevant expenditure before the 57 per cent. which the taxpayer has to pay is calculated.
I do not make any political point about it, but I should like to assure the House that there are long, careful and very knowledgeable negotiations each year in connection with the rate support grant between the local authority associations and the Department of the Environment. I think that the local authority associations feel that their representations are taken fully into account in these negotiations and that they are able to put forward a full case on behalf of their constituent authorities.
The result is that when we get to the final point of the figures there is agreement on, say, 90 per cent. of them, but dispute on perhaps some vital 10 per cent. at the end which has to be decided at Ministerial level. It is decided as best one can between the taxpayer and the ratepayer. It is a difficult matter, and


certainly we in the Department do not enter the negotiations in the spirit of cutting down the taxpayers' contribution. We know that the taxpayers' contribution will increase slightly every year not only in proportion, but absolutely. We try to keep a reasonable balance between the taxpayer and the ratepayer in the provision of the important services by local authorities.

PRIMARY SCHOOLS (BUILDING GRANTS)

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before I call the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins), I am sure he will forgive me if I remind him, although I do not think that he needs reminding, that the same rules apply to his as to the last debate.

8.43 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You are quite right. This will be one of the most difficult debates, because the terms of the Supplementary Estimate are much narrower than I originally thought and it will be a litle difficult to stay within order, but with your help I am sure that we shall be able to do so.
I do not think that there is any doubt about the distress of some primary schools, and I make it clear that, because of the way in which the Supplementary Estimate is drawn, I am talking about aided and controlled schools in the primary sector. As far as I can make out, there are about 8,474 in all scattered throughout the country, a fairly high proportion in the Midlands and the north of England. They are mainly Church of England, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Methodist and so on.
Nobody would deny that this type of school, particularly in country areas, is in a distressed condition. These schools are always worst off. I do not say that they have been neglected over the years, but they certainly seem to have been. Many of those in the country areas are grant-aided and controlled, direct grant and maintained primary schools built before 1903, most in the last century. They have a great tradition which no one would want to question. Because they are grant aided and mainly run by

religious authorities, they rightly hold dearly to their prerogative to appoint governors and staff, and long may they continue so to do.
But that does not get away from the fact that their fabric is often in sore need, not falling down, but in a very poor condition. The comparison between these 19th century primary schools and today's modern primary schools is laughable. They have thick walls. They are, I am sorry to say, cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and in many ways they are inadequate. One can understand how this has arisen, and yet here, in the Estimate which we are discussing, there is in total a provision of £16,700,000, with an increase over the original of £490,000. This is the actual increase of the building grants.
I have raised the matter because this is not adequate enough. I quite understand that we are talking about, virtually, what has happened, because the year 1970–71 has finished. Although this has been an increase during the past year. up to the 31st March, I am really saying that it was not adequate in that year and praying in aid the fact that in the coming years, 1971–72, 1972–73 and onwards, there will be an increase over the allocation which has taken place in the past.
Before I am ruled out of order, may I say that this matter is relevant because what has been described will affect what will happen next year. The starts this year of new building programmes will be extremely important for next year and the years after it. Therefore, it is essential that we should have the matter clearly in the open. The primary school sector, the grant aided, controlled sector, has been getting a rough deal in the past and is in the present.
I am not allotting any political blame. That is not the right sort of thing to talk about in the educational context, especially in the context of building and repair programmes. I am trying to establish that there is a need and that these aided schools, particularly, are in the greatest need.
In my own county of Derbyshire, where my constituency is, and also in the constituency which I had the honour to represent earlier, in North Cornwall, one sees this problem raising its head. In


Derbyshire, for instance, there are 240 such primary schools which were built in the nineteenth century. Ninety-three of them are over 100 years old. There are 279 of them that have no interior lavatories. The toilet arrangements are outside and the children have to go across yards to reach them. They are not all State-aided schools—some are direct maintained schools—but the majority are in that category.
The difficulty is, and has been, especially in the primary sector for the local education authority, which has been very diligent in putting forward to my hon. and right hon. Friend in the Ministry the case for improving, this year, last year and next year, the allocation of moneys for this work. But in the past the snag has been that minor works money has been used.
I am glad to see in HANSARD of 22nd March, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude), that the Minister gave a list of the increased grant for minor works. A large proportion of this, I trust, will be used for minor works in the grant aided sector primary schools. The figure for Derbyshire is being increased by £75,000. That may or may not seem very much, but nevertheless it is a welcome increase for the coming year and will help a lot.
But this minor works money allocation has been used this year in the grant aided schools, and will be next year, and perhaps the increased allocation can allow for new hutted accommodation. Therefore we have the position where, although there is a very small growth in those rural areas, there is growth; but it is being dealt with by allocation of money through minor works. The result is that there is rarely a startling case in which an education authority can tell the Ministry that it is in dire straits because hundreds of children for whom it is responsible have no roofs over their heads. This state of affairs has arisen because action has been taken here and there and small sums have been allocated for huts to go up here and there. This has been particularly true of the grant-aided sector as well as in the other sectors of primary-education.
There is no drama, but the net result is that in Derbyshire alone 2,500 school-

children are being educated in hutted accommodation attached in many cases to very ancient schools. This cannot be right. I know that my hon. Friend has the interests of these small schools at heart. The allocation in this Supplementary Estimate shows that the heart is in the right area.
I hope that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend will not ignore the rural areas where the growth is slow and where schools were built a long time ago. The accommodation is not adequate. I do not plead for reorganisation. The grant-aided schools may have to be organised differently. Perhaps they will have to be taken over as maintained schools, but I would regret that. Nevertheless, there is a great need for help in rural areas.
My hon. Friend has been very helpful in the last six months with an increased allocation for minor works and with an extra allocation for building works in secondary schools, but he can help tremendously by paying particular attention to the grant-aided, the special agreement school sector and the maintained sector of the primary schools. They cannot and must not be allowed to lag behind the other sectors of education, which have had a very fair, perhaps too fair, slice of the cake in the past. I hope that he will be able so to persuade the Treasury that in the coming years the primary sector of education in rural areas will get a better deal than it has had in the past.

8.52 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William van Straubenzee): I will respond as fully as I can to the requests made by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) in pursuance of a consistent and persistent representation, not only of his constituency and of his county, but of the interests of education generally which, being as it were on the other side of the table, I have come very much to respect. We have all listened to another example of it today.
Like my hon. Friend, I am restricted by the rules of order to the strict subject matter of the Supplementary Estimate. If I state something by way of background, it is merely with a view all the time to returning to Sub-head G of Class VII which we are discussing. I


shall therefore hope to keep very strictly in order.
First—I know that my hon. Friend and I think absolutely alike in this—hidden in the figures of this Supplementary Estimate lie the seeds of a change of emphasis. My hon. Friend is right to remind the House that we are talking about the financial year which ends in April, 1971. Nevertheless, the beginnings of a change of policy are there and I believe that they will develop as time passes and that in subsequent years a Supplementary Estimate such as this will increasingly reflect the priority which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is giving in her educational programme to the primary schools.
I know that this is welcome to my hon. Friend. It is in part reflected in these figures, although they refer only to the aided and special agreement schools. It is done directly to implement a pledge upon which we contested the General Election and which was subsequently seen on the White Paper on Public Expenditure last autumn. In short, there has been a deliberate shift of resources towards primary schools. I gladly bring out that point in relation to this Estimate, and in relation to the aided and special agreement schools.
I have to remind the House that shifting resources within a total must necessarily mean spending less on some things and more on others. For example, the House will recall that only very recently I was being attacked as a result of a decision to spend less on school milk and school dinners. I refer to that matter only in passing in order to make the argument and not to discuss that other matter: the point is that, in return for these economies, we are devoting to primary school building more resources than ever before.
The background to this Supplementary Estimate—for we all understand that the voluntary schools form part of one broad pattern—is, quite frankly, twofold.
First of all, secondary schools have in physical terms done better than primary schools from successive building programmes in the past. It was 10 years ago that I had the privilege of being Parliamentary Private Secretary to my noble

Friend Lord Eccles, as he now is, who launched a drive for the reorganisation of all-age schools in rural counties. That drive affected the aided schools that we are now discussing.
Then, in the White Paper of 1958 attention was focussed on the improvement and replacement of old secondary schools, which, again, included the aided schools, with particular emphasis on accommodation for science. The building programmes up to 1967 included large sums for this purpose, and the result was that very little was left over for improving the primary schools. That is the point I make in relation to the Supplementary Estimate.
Under the last Government the building programmes were heavily weighted towards the secondary schools because of the expected growth in numbers. Finally, there was the special programme of over £100 million for raising the school-leaving age. From 1964 to 1970 the only special programme for primary school improvement was an allocation of £16 million for educational priority areas.
The results of this emphasis on secondary school building are to be seen in the figures. Nearly 20 per cent. of primary school children in England and Wales are in schools built before 1903 for which there is a continuing need and which must be replaced or substantially improved. The corresponding figure for secondary schools is only 5 per cent. At the other end of the scale the number of primary school places brought into use since the war by major and minor projects represents only just over 50 per cent. of the present primary school roll. For secondary schools, the figure is 75 per cent.
So my first point is that, in relation to aided schools, as well as to the other sector which we are not discussing, there is on the figures alone a very good case for doing more for the primary schools. I know my hon. Friend agrees with me that the argument for doing this is much stronger than that.
The reason is that often when a young person has done admirably well in further or higher education, it is possible to trace it back to the unsung and largely unpublicised work of some man or woman who tutored that child in the infant and primary stage. This is the foundation upon


which all else rests, and that is why hidden in these figures there are the beginnings of a shift of emphasis. The total schools starts programme, primary and secondary, over the whole range for England and Wales in 1972–73, including the major programmes of raising the school-leaving age and minor works, now stands at £188 million, which is the same as in 1971–72. The important difference between the two years lies in the breakdown of the total.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. The hon. Gentleman is going beyond the Supplementary Estimates, and I shall have to ask him to keep to them. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) could have enlarged on all sorts of subjects but he did not, and I must ask the hon. Gentleman to answer the points raised by his hon. Friend in the terms of the Supplementary Estimates.

Mr. van Straubenzee: I am obliged to you, Sir Robert. In a complete building programme which includes all schools it is extraordinarily difficult and artificial to take out one segment.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Would my hon. hon. Friend not agree that a fairly easy division is that primary sector schools are about a third of the total? Can I assume that about a third of the total allocation of moneys will be going to the primary aided sector?

Mr. van Straubenzee: That is not absolutely right because the contributions between the State on the one hand and the voluntarly bodies on the other enter into it. As a general supposition, that assists, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In the aided sector we now have the opportunity, which I am certain the voluntary bodies—the churches primarily—as well as the local authorities in partnership with the aided and special agreement schools, will be keen to take, to make a dramatic increase in the programme for improvement and replacement of old schools. The beginning of that are shown in the figures we are discussing. I cannot go into the figures overall but I would like to take up the point referred to by my hon. Friend of the distribution of the improvement programme between different parts of the country.
These figures refer to the year ending April, 1971, and it will assist my hon. Friend to see what our thinking is. I believe it directly answers his point if I explain that the programme for educational priority areas and the programme for 1971–72 were allocated overwhelmingly to urban areas with acute social need. Evidence is beginning to come in that there are important effects as a result of the building of new primary schools, and this is encouraging. The effect of the much larger figures for 1972–73 was that my right hon. Friend was able to look wider. The result is that that programme includes a large number of projects designed to replace old schools in rural areas. In total there are 75 projects of this kind to a value of over £4·5 million at the present cost limits.
My hon. Friend, who represents a rural area, knows that in relation to reorganisation, particularly of primary schools in the aided sector—and I am referring only to the aided schools—there are often very real problems in a village community. Neither he nor I must overlook the very real problems which sometimes arise. Nevertheless, I look for very firm progress in that sector.
The programme for the replacement of rural primary schools in 1972–73 which will flow from these figures is about equally divided between county and voluntary schools. This is the answer to my hon. Friend's second question. Nearly 40 voluntary school projects at a cost of £2·5 million are included in the programme. Where the projects relate to aided schools, the managers will get grant at 80 per cent. from my Department on the cost of the building.
I end by referring to two specific points which assist the schools we are discussing and which are directly helpful to them. My hon. Friend was courteous enough to refer to one of them, and that is the announcement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in answer to a Written Question on Monday that allocations for minor works, which for this purpose are projects costing up to about £30,000 each, are being increased by about £2 million in 1971–72 and 1972–73.

Mr, Scott-Hopkins: In each year?

Mr. van Straubenzee: Yes. This will be of direct assistance to the aided sector.
The figures which I have given are overall figures. About two-thirds of these extra resources will go to 17 counties whose primary school numbers are increasing much faster than the national average or which have other special needs —for example, a large number of small, old primary schools which can be effectively improved by minor projects. It is that same category of aided school which is covered by the Supplementary Estimates. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generous welcome of the announcement.
A second step which has been taken within the last 24 hours is the increase of 13 per cent. in cost limits for school building which will apply to all projects due to start after 31st March, 1971. I cannot discuss this, because it is only a matter of days between 31st March and 5th April, and I will not, therefore, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, trespass upon your kindly generosity by referring further to it. In relation to the schools which we are discussing, that is a second alleviation which will be of direct relevance and help to an important sector.
You have been most courteous and kindly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in allowing my hon. Friend and me certain latitude. It is important for the outside world to understand that we are here discussing a narrow estimate which necessarily gives a certain artificiality to our discussion. I hope, nevertheless, that it will have thrown a searchlight on the sector of school provision which is important to my hon. Friend and which I hope he will accept is important to me.

9.11 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Marks: We are grateful to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) for raising this matter of school building. I saw some of the schools in his constituency when I took part in the by-election in which he was elected.
The shift of resources which the Under-Secretary of State has spoken of was inevitable rather than deliberate. Building programmes for secondary education are not now so necessary and neither are the overhead programmes in overspill areas. This means that more money is available, and I congratulate the Government on using these resources for primary schools.

This would have been inevitable, whichever Government had come to power after the General Election.
The managers and diocesan authorities have a special problem. I do not know whether I am in order in referring to Sub-head H, which shows a reduction in loans for aided and special agreement schools because fewer applications than expected have been received. The managers of these schools have to make up their minds not only upon the building programme which they need and the cost of it, but also on whether they can afford it, or will have to go to controlled status to raise the necessary money.
There is a school in my constituency which was originally built as a national school in 1834. Part of the school had to be knocked down and rebuilt. For two years the managers dithered, until finally they made up their minds that the school would have to become a controlled school. There is a need to look well ahead, otherwise we shall not be taking up the amount of grant which is being made available. Although I appreciate that most of these schools are in the rural areas, it is significant that in the great cities, which in the main have had priority in the past, the church primary schools are left still to make this conversion.
There needs to be continual reassessment. The survey which the Under-Secretary of State was kind enough to let me have in reply to a Written Question a few weeks ago shows that there are gaps, and this suggests that not all local education authorities are sure what improvements and replacements are needed. I hope that particular attention will be paid to this matter. There is a need for a priority area. I hope that local education authorities and church authorities will get together about it. Though the schools are denominational in name, many, particularly in rural areas, are taking children not only of a particular faith, but of whatever faith and of no faith at all. So there is this need for consultation between local education authorities and church authorities and an early assessment of the needs and method of controlled or aided status.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, I take his point, but I think he will agree, as he is close to the subject, that what is important


is the making available of resources. We cannot debate that in any sense tonight, but the hon. Gentleman will know that we inherited an improvement programme for 1972–73 of £11 million, and that has been increased under this Government to £38·5 million. This is the key point in the whole argument.

Mr. Marks: Yes. The point is that programmes are not always held to. They are often increased, as they have been in the past and as in this case. Some of the additions to the programme were not in the original statements made by the Government in the weeks and months immediately following the General Election. We have had one today, and there is to be another on Monday. This is a continually changing programme. I have no doubt that had the General Election result been different, my right hon. Friend would have been making the additions which have been made.

DEFENCE BUDGET

9.17 p.m.

Mr. John Wilkinson: I am glad to be able to use this occasion of the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill to raise the relative escalation of manpower, equipment and training costs on the defence budget revealed in the Vote on Account 1971–72 and in the Supplementary Estimates, House of Commons Paper No. 231.
The Supplementary Estimates provide us with a most welcome opportunity to raise important practical matters of defence planning, the extra costs of pay and allowances and pensions, plus the extra cost of equipment and training. Although the defence Vote no longer bears most heavily of all the Votes upon the Budget, it is still the supreme cause of our parliamentary existence. Although we vote about 75 per cent. more funds for social security than for defence, all our provisions for welfare, health, hospital and educational programmes presuppose national security. Therefore, I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss these Supplementary Estimates.
So far in this Parliament we have discussed defence in breadth twice, but in depth only once in the debate on the Army Estimates, which was drastically curtailed. The debate tonight gives us a

chance to exercise scrutiny on a few overruns of specific defence programmes
I am particularly delighted to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force in his place to wind up the debate. This debate is similar to the one in which he and I participated on 21st July, 1970, on the Consolidated Fund Bill when we discussed similar issues of pay and allowances in the light of the proposal to implement the Third Report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes on Pay and Allowances. Now the position is somewhat different. We have had another Supplementary Estimate in the meantime dealing with the pay and allowances of civilians to the tune of £26 million of extra public money, and now we are presented with a third Supplementary Estimate to the tune of £48 million.
The interesting thing to observe in an analysis of this sum is that about 40 per cent. of the £48 million consists of pay and allowances, and, much more disturbing, £14½ million goes to the pay and allowances of civilians, a greater sum, in fact, than is allocated for defence equipment and related stores. For those items, we are asked to vote a mere £14 million. The retired pay and pensions of Servicemen constitute about £5¾million. These figures exemplify a longstanding trend, and we should look at them closely to try to comprehend their full significance.
In the years since 1964–65, a biennial study of pay and allowances for civilians and for Servicemen shows a very steeply and alarmingly rising trend. In 1964–65, the total defence budget constituted about £2,000 million. In 1970–71, the projected expenditure is £2,280 million. In other words, in a period when the value of the £ has gone down by some 25 per cent. in real terms, in terms of demand upon resources defence is taking very little extra. In fact, we are spending relatively less on defence.
But on pay of civilians, we are spending almost twice as much as we did in 1964–65, and pay of Service personnel has gone up from £392 million in 1964–65 to £464 million in 1970–71, which is not such a large increase proportionately.
While I understand the arguments for relying as much as possible on civilian


manpower to fulfil certain non-essential functions in headquarters and other administrative places, I still find it alarming to see the proportion of the defence budget devoured by pay and allowances escalating constantly.
In 1964–65, the percentage devoted to pay and allowances was 37 per cent. Now, according to the Secretary of State in another place, it is as high as 52 per cent.—at a time when weapons costs have escalated faster than ever before, when we are rightly expecting that the diminution in force levels should be more than offset by an increase in fire power and capability in weapons systems. This is hard to understand, when we are spending not only less in real terms on defence but an ever-decreasing proportion of the defence budget on equipment procurement and research and development.
A very interesting article in the winter 1969 issue of the R.A.F. Quarterly shows that in 1963–64 pay of Servicemen and civilians constituted 34 per cent. of the whole; by 1969 it had gone up to 40 per cent. Production and research and development, on the other hand, in 1964 constituted 40 per cent. In 1969 it had gone down to 36 per cent. In other words, there had been a total shift of emphasis and resources from research and development to pay and allowances.
The reasons for this are well understood. In the first Supplementary Estimate, when we introduced the military salary, we made it an axiom that the Armed Services should try to compete directly with industry for manpower, and in this Supplementary Estimate we are seeing a continuation of the same process. However, it has been carried out at the expense of procurement programmes.
This risk was underlined in the Secretary of State's speech in another place, when he spoke of the difficulties that this created, and said that both major items, equipment and manpower, were subject to their own pressures. Increasing complexity naturally forced up equipment costs and, he said, it cost between two and five times as much to re-equip an Army unit now as it did 10 years ago, even discounting inflation. At the same time, the g.n.p. had risen by only a little over one-quarter. Manpower costs had also risen. He emphasised this central dilemma to our defence planning, but he

very much begged the question of where the solution lay. Before we accept this Supplementary Estimate, my hon. Friend should suggest some of the avenues which the Government are pursuing to seek a way out of this difficult impasse.
I come to some of the specific programmes mentioned in this Supplementary Estimate and, in doing so, I shall draw a few conclusions from them. On page 18 we find that training expenses require an extra £540,000 for payments to other Governments for air training facilities in Sardinia. I see that there was no provision for this expenditure, but the House will understand the fundamental reasons for this. In Sardinia there is obviously uncongested airspace away from airports and airways, the weather is better, with good open ranges and an opportunity to collaborate with our N.A.T.O. allies and to carry out transit flights across N.A.T.O. countries. These are significant factors.
However, I urge my hon. Friend to consider, before we vote this extra sum, whether there could be savings by utilising existing facilities more fully. I refer, in particular, to the air to ground range at R.A.F. Pembrey, at present used by No. 229 Tactical Weapons Unit at Chivenor. It will, if present plans continue, be gradually run down and there is talk of using it as an artillery range, which the local inhabitants regard with great disfavour.
I suggest that before we vote this extra sum my hon. Friend should say whether the R.A.F. could continue to use this British facility, especially when the Royal Naval Air Station Brawdy is to become the Operational Conversion Unit for "Jaguar", and that will require a great deal of weapon training and gunnery facilities. I hope, therefore, that we will use these British facilities as much as possible.
On page 26 we see some items of equipment expenditure. The first is airframes and aero-engines. I note that there is to be a diminished provision for airframes and purchases of aircraft, to the tune of about £4 million. I hope that this is not as significant as it looks, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be able to give me an assurance about it. As I have emphasised, we look to an expanding equipment programme to


offset deficiencies or necessary reductions in manpower.
More significant, perhaps, is the question of aero-engines, with the substantial extra provision asked for of £19,400,000. The reason given is increased prices and variations in delivery dates. That sounds rather like the old Rolls-Royce syndrome to me, and I should like an explanation. It is a very substantial item, and it is largely because of that item that any extra expenditure on equipment is called for at all, for on the other side of the Estimate one finds substantial reductions planned for in certain equipment programmes.
Next, electrical and electronic equipment, instruments and so on. Obviously, a high degree of sophistication in avionics is increasingly called for in modern weapons systems and aircraft. I imagine that this extra item is largely the result of inflation, a prevalent factor in our economy, but I should like my hon. Friend to spell it out in more detail because it comes to about £9½ million. It may mean that there are, perhaps, serious development problems in a few programmes, Navattack systems and the like.
On research and development, we have an extra £2½ million or thereabouts to find. I do not look askance at this. On the whole, I welcome it, for there has been a tendency in recent years to reduce expenditure on research and development. Even my hon. Friend himself, winding up on the first day of our Defence Estimates debate, made a slightly ominous remark, which I well understood, when he hypothesised on the possibility of buying equipment off the shelf from abroad to reduce the proportion of our defence budget which went on research and development.
That was something which the last Government did, to their discredit, because it was a severe blow to the British industry and also because it had serious strategic implications in making us reliant upon an overseas supplier. I should not like that mistake to be repeated, and I take this extra provision as an indication that it will not be. This is an important matter, for research and development constitutes about 10 per cent. of the defence budget.
Now, on the question of equipment, what about the savings made? There are two vessels which were deferred or not ordered. This saved £2½ million. But we are cutting back on equipment when we should, perhaps, be expanding our equipment programme. There are large reductions in planned expenditure on both weapons and ammunition, due to inflationary pressures, price variation, production delays, delays in ordering, and the like. I am not sure that at this moment, with Ulster on our hands and always the possibility of an escalation there, we should be making these particular savings.
On engineering equipment, we make savings of £5 million, and on plant and machinery in the dockyards and elsewhere, £700,000. So there were reductions in equipment programmes which I believe to be significant. Perhaps my hon. Friend can tell me about them.
I go on about this matter repetitiously, perhaps, but not, I trust, tediously, because we have before us the example of the Canadians who also have an all-professional defence posture, and only 13 per cent. of their defence budget goes on equipment. That is very much the redttctio ad absurdunz, to which, I fear, the logic of our policies may ultimately lead us.
I broadly accept these Estimates. I do so with a certain amount of disquiet, though not a major anxiety, because the broad emphasis of the Government's defence planning is absolutely right—more on the front line, a greater determination to meet commitments, an expansion of reserve forces, particularly in the Territorial Army. All those are admirable concepts, but I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary before we accept the Estimates to say whether the Government will examine the real benefit that a citizen force could give this country, that is, a system whereby we did not have such an ever-increasingly large proportion of our defence budget, devoted to pay and allowances.
Defence targets for the next four years are fixed, and the rate of growth may not be as high as we would all expect. Inflation may continue to present us with a problem. In that situation it is essential that we look to a novel and radical policy, perhaps based on the Swiss or


Israeli patterns of operation, which will relieve us of this dilemma and make a positive contribution to our defence planning.

9.36 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force (Mr. Antony Lambton): My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) began by saying that although we have had the Army Estimates we have not yet had the Navy and Air Force Estimates. That it true. As he knows, they are to be taken later this year, when the matter can be discussed further.
My hon. Friend referred to Pembrey, and said that consideration should be given to using British ranges as much as possible. The matter is under consideration, and everything my hon. Friend has said will be listened to with interest.
My hon. Friend also dealt with certain variations of delivery dates for naval vessels. This is something that arises from time to time, and cannot always be fully explained.
It will be helpful if I cover more fully some of the figures introduced by my hon. Friend which are the subject of the debate he has initiated. I shall take manpower first.
Manpower costs accounted for about 47 per cent. of the defence budget in 1961–62. In 1966–67 the proportion was very nearly the same, about 46 per cent., and we estimate that in 1971–72 it will have risen to about 54 per cent. That last figure is slightly higher than that quoted by my noble Friend the Secretary of State in the defence debate in another place on 24th February, when he said that manpower costs represented about 52 per cent. of the defence budget. The reason is that these two sets of figures have been prepared on slightly different bases. For the purpose of my noble Friend's speech, manpower in the Royal Ordnance Factories was included in the total percentage for equipment, which the R.O.F.'s manufacture. The higher figure of 54 per cent. which I have given includes this R.O.F. manpower. That accounts for the small difference of about 2 per cent.
Four main elements make up the total expenditure on manpower which my hon. Friend has questioned. The first and

largest of the four elements is pay and allowances for regular personnel. In each of the three years I have mentioned they account for about half the expenditure on manpower and represent about 22 per cent. of the defence budget in 1961–62; slightly more, nearly 23 per cent., in 1966–67; and up to 27 per cent. in 1971–72.
The second main block of expenditure on manpower is in respect of civilians. This accounted for about 19 per cent. in 1961–62, 18 per cent. in 1966–67, and 21 per cent. in 1971–72.
The two remaining elements of expenditure on manpower are very much smaller. Retired pay, pensions, and so on, accounted for just over 4 per cent. of the defence budget in 1961–62, about the same four years later, and a little over 5 per cent. in 1971–72. These figures exclude the cost of civil superannuation, which was borne on the defence budget in 1961–62, but was transferred to civil Votes in 1962–63. For the purposes of comparison, civil superannuation has been excluded from the 1961–62 figure I have quoted.
Lastly, there is expenditure on reserve pay, which has always been a subject of great interest to my hon. Friend, and this represented just over 1 per cent. of the defence budget in 1961, about the same four years later, and about 0·7 per cent. in 1971–72.

Mr. Wilkinson: Although I accept my hon. Friend's helpful and informative figures, will he agree that two matters are of great importance? The first is that in regard to reserve forces pay there has, as my hon. Friend has said, been a diminution of a third over the period from £21 million in 1964–65 to £14 million in 1970–71, but this pay is a worth-while investment because from it one spreads the catchment area very widely and this has a more than proportionate significance on recruitment. Secondly, there has been a most interesting reduction in pay in the Ministry of Defence, some £22,000 less on this Vote in the reorganisation of Ministerial structure, so that the situation is far more cost effective and helpful.

Mr. Lambton: My hon. Friend not only asks the questions but at the same time gives the answers, which makes my job somewhat easier.
In the three years I have taken for my examples, expenditure on manpower has varied from just under half to just over half the total of the defence budget.
To deal with equipment, which is the variant of my hon. Friend's theme, expenditure on equipment has accounted for much of the rest. It accounted for 36 per cent. of the defence budget in 1961–62, 39 per cent. five years later, and about 30 per cent. in 1971–72. The balance of expenditure making up the defence budget total has remained fairly constant at about 15 per cent. to 17 per cent. It is accounted for by a number of items, including fuel and works.
My hon. Friend has rightly pointed out —indeed it was his main argument—that pay and allowances in 1971–72 take a higher proportion of the total than they did in the two earlier years I have quoted. This increase is partly attributable to civil personnel costs but mainly to a rise in the cost of military pay as a result of the introduction of the new pay structure last year and this year. This led to a great improvement in the pay of single Servicemen and an all-round improvement for everyone. At the same time, there has also, over the years, been —as my hon. Friend knows, since he served in the Royal Air Force himself and has a close acquaintance with many machines—a very marked increase in the cost of major items of equipment. As a result, as my noble Friend pointed out in the defence debate in another place on 24th February, the defence budget is subject to many pressures from within and without—pressures which by no means recede as the years go on.
As far as external pressures are concerned, it is clearly right that defence should get a fair proportion, and I think one can only hope to get a fair proportion, of the national resources. It has to compete with parallel demands from many other quarters. But within the defence budget itself there are these two conflicting claims between manpower and equipment.
My hon. Friend dealt lightly with training costs. The cost of training is bound to grow as the complexity of the weapons used increases. As he will agree, this is in itself a powerful argument in favour of long-service regular forces which can acquaint themselves

with these complexities. The aim must be to make every effort to limit the defence resources devoted to training and, indeed, to other overhead activities to the minimum consistent with the markedly higher standards which we must maintain.
Successive defence White Papers have described the series of measures that have been and are being taken to streamline and rationalise the training organisation of the three services and, therefore, to limit the growth of training costs. As the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop) will agree, this is not really a matter over which the two parties are in disagreement, because both Front Benches have striven to limit these costs, and I am sure that every Government, from whichever party, will continue to try to do this. But trying to steer the best path between these two major claims on the defence funds is extremely difficult and complex and must involve a choice of priorities. What we have tried to do—as the last Government, with perhaps a different point of view, tried to do—is to find the right balance. In the meantime, it is worth pointing out in this context that the targets after 1972–73 for the defence budget adopted by the Government and announced in the Supplementary Defence White Paper last autumn showed increases on the figure for that year.
Furthermore, these targets are at constant prices and are therefore, as is normal practice, subject to changes in the level of pay and prices arising after the targets were fixed. As I understand it, my hon. Friend's underlying argument is that the choices I have referred to are becoming out of balance and that manpower and equipment in the quantity and quality required cannot really be accommodated within the amount of money which is likely to be available for defence. I hope that I am not putting words into his mouth when I say that his solution would seem to be that, of the two resources, in manpower there should be a "give", as it were, that we should rely more heavily on reservists, whose pay and allowances, being lower than those of regulars, would take a smaller proportion of the defence budget.

Mr. Wilkinson: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, who has grasped extremely clearly the whole tenor of my


argument. I should not like that argument to be exaggerated and overemphasised, however. What I am saying is that of course there must be a highly professional, highly-trained element with great command potential and a good career structure for long service, but for the rest substantially greater emphasis should be placed on reservists who could be trained at weekends and comprehensively in the evenings, thereby saving prodigious expenditure on the permanent standing forces.

Mr. Lambton: My hon. Friend is perfectly consistent in his argument, which he never loses an opportunity to put forward, but it would be only right for me to say that I do not think that is the right solution to our problem.
To be slightly more precise and to go into a little more detail, to answer a question of principle in detail, in the Navy today ships have almost ceased to be ships in the old naval sense of the word and have become floating weapons systems using the most sophisticated electronic and engineering equipment which would have been inconceivable only a few years ago. Proficiency, ability in the operation of this equipment, and, therefore, the whole effectiveness of the Fleet depends upon full-time training and constant practice over a very long period. The extent to which use may be made of reserves in this one example is therefore limited. My hon. Friend will know that there is no reserve fleet as such.
I know that this touches upon a considerable problem, but it would be wrong not to agree that every year the increase in technicality and the increasing need for extra knowledge diminish the case for part-time reservists in many branches of the Service. At the same time, our plans provide for an extensive use of reserves for wartime billets. There are many wartime billets which could not be filled except by reserves, if only because their peacetime counterparts do not exist. To continue my analogy with the Navy, this is the position with the central control of shipping organisation, the manning of the maritime port headquarters and the operation of active service mine-sweepers.
We have also recently reviewed the reserve requirements for the Royal Navy and the Royal Marine in the context both of numbers and availability. As a result

of this—I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome this—we shall be increasing the size of the Royal Marine Reserve by about 400 men and we shall be creating a special branch of the Royal Fleet Reserve, which will be built up over the next few years, to give us the option of the early recall of a substantial number of ex-regular specialist naval ratings and Royal Marines in the first year of their reserve service. We also have other plans to increase the availability of other reserves. These plans are in the development stage.
I am answering my hon. Friend in some detail and not limiting myself to the Royal Air Force, in which he has shown rather specialised interest. In the case of the Army we plan to use reservists to bring B.A.O.R. up to its full mobilisation order of battle, in which process its strength is roughly double. What my hon. Friend had in mind, therefore, would seem to go further than this and to involve a conscious change in our force structure, which would in turn call in question the considerations which underline the balance between regular and reserve forces in our forward planning.
Fundamentally these considerations are strategic. As the House knows, the Government, and, I think, the Opposition, fully support the current N.A.T.O. strategy of deterrence, the modern concept of which came into being, one might say, under the late Government in 1967, with the policy of flexible response which was an initiation of acceptance of the new state of affairs. This involves the need for ready forces to be deployed in peacetime as a visible sign of our ability to use them in the event of war. It would not be an exaggeration to say that our N.A.T.O. allies would not like us to reduce the number of regular units available by day and night and, instead, increase the number of reserve units, which in peacetime would be based in the United Kingdom and would thus, apart from anything else, add to the logistic task that already exists should it be necessary, in a period of tension, to transfer to the Continent the reservists now required to bring B.A.O.R. up to war establishment.
I go further and argue that a further reason for relying on regular forces is again the need for a high professsional standard in handling the modern equipment which is now really the everyday


working equipment of so many of our forces.

Mr. Wilkinson: I do not know whether my hon. Friend realises how very welcome is his statement about naval and Royal Marine reserves, because they play a most significant part in our naval capability. Before he moves on to the broad strategic picture and conclusion, may I ask whether he would re-examine the rôle of our coastal forces? Since the "Eilat" incident, the great potential of missile boats, and the like, has been emphasised, especially in narrow seas, such as those that surround our island. This rôle could be well suited to the reserves, as is already emphasised in their mine sweeping task.

Mr. Lambton: My hon. Friend need have no fear. These matters are perpetually under consideration. I can only go back again to saying that the implications of calling out reservists will always make them less immediately available than regular troops. Nor can I imagine that the quantity which we have today compensates for the lack of know-how. As I have mentioned, the difficulty about reservists is that an increase of quantity would greatly aggravate the problems of moving reserve forces from the United Kingdom to the Continent. However, if reservists are to be effective —I do not think that anyone would suggest that we had reservists who were not effectively armed they need equipment. On the question of equipment we come right up against the problem of expenditure, because properly to equip reservists we would in all probability have to provide them with weapons of very great cost in the knowledge of which they might not have the time to perfect themselves.
Against the background of these general considerations the Government have, within a given defence total, tried to achieve a balance between the regular and the reserve forces. The Government have decided on a slight shift in

emphasis, and the T.A. and V.R. will shortly begin to be expanded by about 10,000, a decision which my hon. Friend has said that he welcomes. This is only a slight change in emphasis when viewed against the whole sum of defence expenditure.
I have tried to give my hon. Friend some concrete examples and also drawn the picture as the Government see it.
To sum up, I recognise the problem of increasing costs which was the foundation of my hon. Friend's speech. I hope that what I have said has conveyed two things to him. The first is that there are genuinely very powerful arguments, which apply equally to all three Services, against the solution of the problem of costs which he himself put forward so plainly and clearly. These arguments stem from questions of the availability of extra manpower, the great difficulty in achieving and maintaining other than in regular forces the high standard of skill now required, and the implications for the combat-readiness of front line forces.
In saying this, I do not mean in any way to criticise my hon. Friend's enthusiasm, nor the very high quality of the reserve forces which we have at our disposal. However, these arguments seem to amount to a very convincing case in present circumstances against the very massive switch between regular and reserve forces which a following of my hon. Friend's suggestion would initiate.
I hope that what I have said also has shown my hon. Friend that we are fully alive to the need to get the greatest possible benefit from the correct balance between the regular and the reserve components of our forces. This is the main question. We put forward one point of view. My hon. Friend's is a variant of it. We respect my hon. Friend's opinion, although perhaps not agreeing with it. We have announced decisions and are doing further work designed to improve the balance. I assure the House that this will continue to be our aim.

ROLLS-ROYCE

10.4 p.m.

Mr. William Whitlock: Several times in recent weeks we have debated the vexed problem of Rolls-Royce. I make no apology for wishing to raise the matter once again tonight, when we are considering the Supplementary Estimates which involve, in the words of the Estimate, the
Purchase of certain assets and part of the undertaking, of
a company, that company being Rolls-Royce.
Hard negotiations are at present proceeding in America on the future of the RB211, and I would not like to say anything that would be in any way prejudicial to those negotiations. The Government appear at last to be acting with the kind of vigour which should have been manifested at the outset with regard to the difficult problems following the collapse of one of our proudest companies.
I do not wish to speak about such esoteric problems as the legalities involving the repudiation of the RB211 contract, or about the fate of the subcontractors, whose survival is important to the progress of the nationalised company, or about a number of other problems to which hon. Members will no doubt wish to refer. I am concerned with ensuring that, whether or not the RB211 contract goes ahead, Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited shall be in a position to fulfil whatever role is assigned to it, and to fulfil that rôle in a way commensurate with the proud name it bears.
There are four main British actors in the Rolls-Royce drama. First of all, we have the Government, which in this matter must represent the taxpayer, must look at employment prospects and must be concerned with export potential and defence supplies. Second, there is the Receiver, who represents the creditors, and who is legally obliged to get the best price he can for the assets of the old Rolls-Royce company. Third, there is the board of Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited, the Government financed and owned company whose boundaries have not yet been decided. Fourth, no doubt advis-

ing the Receiver in the somewhat shadowy background, we have the board of the old company which got into such terrible difficulties.
What worries we is that these four authorities, if one may call them that, appear to be acting not in unison, not with any well-defined goal in view, but in entirely separate and conflicting ways under, as it were, a smokescreen which makes it impossible to decide who is making what decisions and why those decisions have been made. What we must be sure about before it is too late, before the body of the old Rolls-Royce company is dismembered in an entirely unsatisfactory and unscientific way, is that there are co-ordinated decisions which will make it possible for Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited to deliver the goods on the RB211 engine, if the contract is renegotiated, and that the potentialities of Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited are not irreparably impaired by hasty decisions which get rid of essential staff and which close down and disperse essential equipment. It seems to me that some of those things are now happening under the smokescreen I have mentioned.
On 11th February and 11th March I spoke in the House on the amazing record of the Rolls-Royce factory at Hucknall. I spoke in admiration of the men, the skilled engineers and specialists of all kinds, who work there. When leading a delegation to see the Minister of Aviation Supply, I claimed that this body of men was a unique team and a national asset which must not be broken up. Some hon. Members may think those remarks somewhat eulogistic, but I do not think they represent anything other than the true position.
What is happening to the redundancies at Hucknall, Derby and other places is no less than a weakening of this team whose strength and excellence will be needed if Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. is to rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of the old company and if the new company is to hold the proud position held by its predecessor. The Minister has said that the question of redundancy is one for the receiver and not for him, just as he has said that the problems of the subcontractors are matters which should be raised not with him but with the Receiver.


Surely he and the new Rolls-Royce board must be concerned with the retention of the human assets necessary to make Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd a viable concern?
I beg the Minister, as I did when I met him in his office, to look more closely into this. His recent letter to me merely passes on statements made to him by others about these redundancies. I do not find what he has to say in any way acceptable or adequate. I ask him not to accept blindly the statements that he has been given. I ask him to probe thoroughly into them. If he does, I am sure he will decide that many of the dismissals which have taken place are criminally wrong and will be bitterly regretted before long when these absent skills are needed.
The kind of people who are being made redundant range from highly skilled engineers with over 30 years' experience, who were shattered by the fact that this company to which they had remained so loyal no longer needed their services, to young men with shorter service, in some cases brilliant young men who are badly needed. Britain cannot do without people of this kind, young or old, skilled engineers, executives or research workers. The Minister should be much more concerned with their plight than is apparent from the letter I have received from him.
On 17th March I spoke in this House about the decision to close the flight-testing establishment at Hucknall by the end of the month. This was raised again by the delegation a week ago. The Minister says in his letter to me:
I understand that the Receiver's decision on the flying unit implements proposals which had been under consideration for some time by the management of Rolls-Royce Ltd. and had been very carefully evaluated. What the Receiver did was in the interests of securing the necessary economies in Rolls-Royce Ltd.'s operations and take action which had previously been prepared. It must be clear in principle that the elimination of one of the company's two flying units is likely to be a useful economy. This is true even if initially the closure involves some extra expense.
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that my information is that what he has been told about the careful evaluation of the decision to close Hucknall is eyewash.

After the merger with Bristol-Siddeley there was, naturally, consideration of rationalisation measures. Last year at the Farnborough Air Show a Bristol executive harped on the need for this rationalisation and argued with me that there was a case for the closure of the Hucknall flight-testing establishment. I went into the matter then and was told that the decision had been taken that there was a need for two flight-testing establishments, each one in proximity to an engine centre. I suspect that the decision to keep two was taken because in the evaluation conducted then Hucknall came out very high and there was a need to keep it because of its position. If the Derby engine division is to be continued, a flight-testing establishment in close proximity to Derby is very necessary. It bodes ill for Derby if the flight-testing establishment at Hucknall is closed.
I have no hesitation in saying that the collection of plant and installations at Hucknall is unique in the world, and the flight-testing side is part of the unit. If the flight-testing establishment is transferred from Hucknall, an entity which has taken more than 35 years to establish will become vulnerable to gradual erosion and eventually to disbandment.
In his letter to me the Minister talked about the initial extra expense of closure, and it would be a large extra cost to move from Hucknall all kinds of complex equipment and plant. There would also be the cost of interfacing the Filton computer, which is incompatible with the airborne equipment of the Jaguar. Since I understand, although I am surprised, that wages at Bristol are higher than they are at Nottingham, there could be increased wages costs. Expense could be incurred in training personnel at Filton who are inexperienced in using the equipment which is at Hucknall. There would be extra costs in communications because of the greater distance from Filton to Derby and to the supply centres for aircraft spares. Some of those additional expenses are continuing and not just initial, but they could be overcome and assimilated in time.
Significantly, however, the Minister has not dealt in his letter with the one big disadvantage of Filton which I mentioned in my speech on 11th March namely,


that it is very vulnerable as a base for flight testing because it is near major air routes so that flight testing could be inconvenient, difficult and dangerous. I want to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary why this decision has been taken and why this problem has not been mentioned in the Minister's letter. Those who supplied the other statements in his letter have chosen not to deal with the matter, and I wonder why.
Something wrong is happening. The closure of the Hucknall flight-testing establishment, once carried out, is likely to be irreversible, and, I am sure, in the course of time very much regretted. I wonder who has taken that decision and why. If it is the Receiver, he is interested only in obtaining short-term economies. Should not the Minister be concerned with the long-term consequences of this decision, and should not he be arguing with the Receiver about it instead of merely passing on the lame and inadequate explanations which I have received?
I come to another part of Hucknall's activities around which peculiar things have been taking place. I refer to the hyfil plant, which was closed the week before last. When I learned two weeks ago what was going on, I was greatly concerned. Hyfil has wrongly got a bad name because of the problems associated with the development of the RB211. But all the problems of hyfil associated with the aero-engine are virtually over with one tiny exception, and that is about to be solved. But even if no carbon fibre blades ever go into an aero-engine, I believe that this is the material of the future with a wide range of possible applications. It has an enormous commercial potential, and Rolls-Royce customers are now asking for it. New developments and cost reductions in production are just around the corner. In those circumstances, what has been happening at Hucknall is very strange, to say the least.
Certain equipment and machinery were taken away from Hucknall to unknown destinations in a secretive manner. Stocks of Hyfil were said to have been shipped to America, again in a "cloak and dagger" atmosphere. All this, along with the closure of the plant at that time, seemed absolutely incomprehensible. It did not make sense from the creditors'

point of view, nor from the point of view of any decision which might have been taken to hive off this operation as a separate going concern.
Hovering around like vultures while all this has been going on, have been certain foreign interests which have been trying to engage the hyfil staff and cash in on another British product. If we are not careful, in the not too distant future we shall be buying from abroad the important material which has been developed here.
I do not know who made the decision to close the plant and make the staff redundant, but last week I expressed my concern to anyone who would listen to me—to hon. Members, to journalists and others—about an action which seemed to me remarkably stupid. No doubt in time this percolated through to the person, whoever it was, who made these arrangements, for at the end of last week the plant was given a reprieve and half the staff were offered re-employment, albeit on a temporary basis, pending a final decision on the plant. Why was it necessary for all this to happen? It is just another example of precipitate action which was eventually, but fortunately in this case not too late, seen to be unwise. I ask the hon. Gentleman, as I asked the Minister last Thursday when I saw him with a delegation, to investigate this matter thoroughly. There is a great deal which needs explanation. Conflicting interests have been at work here, and we in this House should know all about them.
Finally, these matters involve decisions which seem to have been taken without regard to the future viability of Rolls-Royce (1971) or to Britain's long-term interests. The Receiver must be concerned with the interests of the creditors, but the Minister has a wider duty, and, knowing him as I do, I am sure that he is all too conscious of that wider duty. If in his efforts to carry out that duty he is impeded by considerations of which I am not knowledgeable and of which the House may not be knowledgeable, I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to give us information which will go some way to explaining the virtually incomprehensible actions which are detrimental in the long term to the interests of Rolls-Royce (1971) and of Britain.

10.23 p.m.

Mr. Norman Fowler: Like the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock), I recognise how important it is that nothing that is said tonight should prejudice the negotiations which are going on in Washington. I pay tribute to the Government's attempts to renegotiate the RB211 contract. It is important to Rolls-Royce (1971), to the workers there and to the whole country that this contract should be renegotiated. The Government have recognised this and are handling the negotiations with skill and diplomacy. It is particularly important that the people working at Rolls-Royce should clearly understand that everything that can be done in renegotiating the contract is now being done.
I should like to follow what the hon. Member for Nottingham, North said about the potential of Rolls-Royce (1971). I, too, should declare a constituency interest. Men living in South Nottingham work for Rolls-Royce in both Derby and Hucknall. It is Hucknall, which perhaps gets less attention than Derby and certainly less than it deserves, to which I should like specifically to refer.
I visited Hucknall and was extremely impressed not only with the kind of work which was being carried out but by the way in which that work was being done and, above all, the atmosphere.
Clearly, there is now tension and concern about the future. But what came out most clearly was that the Rolls-Royce operation at Hucknall was a team effort. The men are devoted to Rolls-Royce and are prepared at times—I do not exaggerate—to work round the clock in the interests not only of the old company but of the new company. The men at Hucknall—I make no division between management and workers—have in many cases devoted their working lives to making Rolls-Royce a success. No one would claim that responsibility for the tragic difficulties of that company could be laid at their door. I say this to emphasise the fact that they deserve, and can justly expect, to receive the greatest consideration in the situation which Rolls-Royce now faces.
We cannot ignore that we are dealing with the affairs of a bankrupt firm. If that were not the case, there would

be no cause for this debate tonight or for the action and the debates which have led to it. As we are dealing with a bankrupt firm, the bitter truth must be faced that there will almost inevitably be redundancies, but the manner in which these redundancies are carried out, the manner in which that policy is implemented, is very important.
Relating those remarks to the Rolls-Royce establishment at Hucknall, two points cause me concern. The first is the point raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North—the closure of flight testing at Hucknall. I understand that the Derby part of Rolls-Royce considers that Hucknall is a preferable alternative to Filton.
But what particularly concerns me is the manner in which this decision has been taken. It was apparently taken without any consultation with the project management concerned. It was also clearly taken without any knowledge of future commitments, like the commitment on the RB211. I should therefore like to know on what basis this decision was taken and specifically what economies will result if the Minister is in a position to tell us.
My second concern is about the policy on the carbon fibre, hyfil plant, also at Hucknall, where there have also been redundancies.
I refer to the article in The Engineer of 16th March, an extremely powerful and cogent article, which raised some very worrying facts and made some very worrying assertions about the position. For example, it stated that there is concern about the future of the stocks now accumulated at Hucknall which are of considerable monetary value. I hope that there is no intention, as the article suggests, that they are simply to be scrapped.
There is also concern about the disappearance of machinery and equipment from Hucknall. These have been moved to destinations certainly unknown to senior management there.
My greatest concern is about the possible break-up of the carbon fibre team itself. They were an experienced and highly skilled team. If proof of this were needed, it is that members of that team have been approached by other firms not only in this country but from overseas who were anxious to make use


of that team's talents. I would consider it sad if this team were broken up, particularly if the benefit of its work simply went overseas.
I can see the point of a policy aimed at keeping the team in Rolls-Royce (1971) and even of trying to sell it as a separate unit, but not of simply trying to disband it. That policy has very little to commend it and very little in logic to support it. In supporting the Government in their general policy on Rolls-Royce, and particularly in wishing them well in the present vital negotiations, I would press, as did the hon. Member for Nottingham, North, for urgent consideration to be given to the problems of Rolls-Royce at Hucknall.

10.32 p.m.

Dr. John Gilbert: First, I thank the Minister for the letter which I received from him a few days ago and the very gracious apology it contains. I hope that I understand his difficulties. I would like to pay him a personal tribute for the patience he has shown during these long debates on the Rolls-Royce situation, even when he has not been giving us very much information. There is a good deal of sympathy among my colleagues over the way in which he has been abandoned by the Cabinet in this matter. I do not suggest that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary are not competent to handle it; in fact I think that they are much more competent than the two members of the Cabinet who have given us very sorry performances for 15 minutes each when they have intervened in Rolls-Royce affairs. But no doubt Ministers feel that this is a point which has been discussed enough.
But many questions still remain to be answered about the Rolls-Royce affair. Despite what the Minister said at Question Time yesterday, there are still many jobs in the balance, I am certain, about which we have no firm information. There are still many families living in anxiety, not only in Rolls-Royce but in its sub-contractors and suppliers. Nothing is more debilitating than nagging doubt about one's future job prospects.
The reason for this uncertainty is that many sub-contractors do not yet know whether they will be able to stay in business. Even if they hope they can, they do not know on what scale this

will be possible when this sorry affair is finally resolved.
This problem affects a most reputable and important company in my constituency with particular acuteness. But this is not the only case. Many firms throughout the West Midlands and in the Black Country in particular are also seriously affected; and this area is the heartland of British industry.
All this uncertainty is quite independent of the fate of the RB211, although, of course, it is compounded by anxiety about the state of the current negotiations with the Americans. I do not want to talk about that contract. I would echo everything said by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) about its importance to the country as well as to Rolls-Royce. But there are many firms which do a great deal of business with Rolls-Royce, not only in absolute terms but as a proportion of their total turnover, which have only a small proportion of that business in contracts involving the RB211.
It is nearly two months since Rolls-Royce declared itself insolvent, but the sub-contractor still have very little idea of where they stand and how much money they can expect. It is all right for the banks; they deal in millions. But for a sub-contractor, perhaps a small engineering firm, £300,000 is a great deal of money and could mean the difference between life and death.
I appreciate that under the requirements of company law there is little the Minister can do to single out subcontractors and help them as a special group. In the small hours in Committee on the Rolls-Royce (Purchase) Act the Minister made a few suggestions, for which I was grateful, though I think my gratitude was due mainly to fatigue. But at least he made some encouraging noises and recognised that for the subcontractors there were only small crumbs on the table.
Among the Minister's suggestions, he said that sub-contractors could try to get back some money by raising their prices to the new Rolls-Royce company. I am sure that nobody in Washington is listening to my remarks tonight, but if the Americans had been listening on that occasion—to the Minister urging subcontractors to screw the new Rolls-Royce


company while the Government were trying to get a better deal from Lockheeds—they would have thought it a most extraordinary posture.
Is the Minister aware of any firm which has succeeded in raising its prices to Rolls-Royce since 4th February? I assure him that that suggestion is a nonstarter as a means of getting more money out for these firms. The sub-contractors need to know quickly what proportion—a rough figure will do; say, within 10 per cent. or even 30 per cent.—of their money they will get back.
In his letter to me the Minister said that £50 million was owed to the sub-contractors as a group. I thought that a rather surprising figure, and, while I am prepared to accept it, I remind him that the Press have put the sum as high as £65 million. Yesterday he said he could not give a more precise figure but that £50 million was, within £1 million or so either way, probably accurate.
Are there any breach of contract cases against the old Rolls-Royce company pending? Could they increase this amount or the amount that will be paid after the secured creditors have been paid? Leaving aside the RB211 considerations, if no such cases are pending does the Minister have knowledge of any cases which may be contemplated and which may affect the situation from the point of view of the unsecured creditors? Or can we take it that the £50 million figure is likely to be close to the final sum, exclusive of anything that may arise in connection with the RB211?
In answering Questions yesterday the Minister expected no further major redundancies, though he could not guarantee that. I appreciate that, but his language represented an ominious slide from what he had said previously. Previously he could not guarantee that there would not be any more redundancies. Now he will not guarantee that there will not be any more "major" redundancies. Is a major redundancy one involving 5,000 or 10,000 men? Where does he draw the line? This sort of uncertainty can only add to the anxiety of those who are still at work.
Moreover, how can the Minister make a statement of that kind—about there not being further major redundancies—

unless he has a clear idea of how much the sub-contractors will finally get? The amount they get will determine whether or not there will be more major redundancies. So far the Minister has refused to give an estimate of what proportion of the debts owed to the sub-contractors and suppliers is likely to be paid off.

Mr. Peter Rost: It is impossible to give any precise estimate of what is likely to be distributed to the creditors until it is known whether the RB211 contract will be successfully renegotiated.

Dr. Gilbert: I take that point, and it was to be a parenthesis in my second next sentence. Clearly, one can make an assessment of what one wants to pay, what one wants to see, what one thinks, as a political judgment, should be paid to the sub-contractors as a group so that they are able to remain in business. Whether that amount has to be increased as a result of what may happen with the RB211 contract is another matter, but one can make a political judgment on how much is necessary for the economic needs of the sub-contractors and in consideration of economic implications if they were to go out of business.
The Minister has repeatedly said that he is not prepared to base his price on political decisions of that sort. He insists that only an economic valuation, however arrived at, will be used to determine the price to be paid for these assets. I do not know how he proposes to go about that. There are many different ways for arriving at the price of a business. He has not even given us the guidelines which he will employ in arriving at a valuation.
In these Supplementary Estimates we have the figure of £30 million, and £20 million of that has gone already on the patents. Clearly, we are far from the end of the road as far as extra money is concerned, regardless of whether the RB211 contract is renegotiated or not.
I am interested to know how the £30 million is arrived at. Is it just put in as a plug figure? I imagine that it must be. Surely, the Minister must have some estimate, if the RB211 contract is renegotiated, of what proportion of the final figure this £30 million can be expected to be. Not precisely, but, say,


to the nearest £5 million or £10 million is all we need.
Yesterday at Question Time the Minister implied that it could be months before the price was known. He said that Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited could easily be in operation before the price was settled—I accept that—but he said that Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited might be in full operation in a matter of months or weeks. That is good news, particularly for those of us who approve of public enterprise; but why should we have to wait so long for some idea of the price? The price is crucial. There is speculation in the Press, but this is of no help to us whatever.
The whole matter has been thrown into further confusion by the original statement by the Minister that there was a possibility of counter-bidders for the assets of Rolls-Royce. This revelation now appears to have been superseded. I say "appears" advisedly. At Question Time yesterday I asked the Minister why the patents had not been available for a counter-bidder, and I asked him about the procedure for this. All he said was:
The patents are an integral part of…Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th March, 1971; Vol. 814, c. 517.]
That does not answer the question. What procedures were used to determine the £20 million paid for the patents? Was the receiver allowed to ascertain whether there were any other bidders in the market who would put up the price which the Government would then match? This is crucial. It is not good enough to say that they are part of the assets taken over by Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited.
The inference is that any asset which is an integral part of Rolls-Royce (1971)—whatever "integral part" may mean—will not be subject to this bidding-up process. If it does not mean that, what does it mean? If it does mean that, does it not make nonsense of what the Minister originally said about the assets being available for counter-bidders?
Next, is the receiver acting in any way for the unsecured creditors, or is he representing solely the interests of the secured creditors? Is his motive now merely to get enough to make sure that the position of the secured creditors is assured and then to wind up the proceedings as quickly as possible so that the secured

creditors get their money out? If he is not acting in this way, how do we explain the arrangement, such as it must have been, to arrive at this figure of £20 million for the patents? Who in the negotiations involving Rolls-Royce, the receiver and the Government, is actually acting for the unsecured creditors?
I am not concerned about the banks. The matter is a fleabite to them. They can take care of themselves. But for the small engineering businesses up and down the country it is a very serious matter. The Minister must recognise that he has a moral responsibility in the matter, particularly after the exchanges in the House last autumn between the Government Front Bench and my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett). The Minister is well aware of what I am referring to.
I trust that the Minister will accept that neither in speeches nor questions have I sought to recriminate about the past. My sole concern at every time has been to try to find out information which will put the fears and uncertainties of my constituents at rest. There are very serious human problems involved. I have met a deputation of shop stewards in my constituency. They are not, in the fashionable phrase, "mindless militants". They could not be further from it. They are sober, industrious, hard-working family men. Above all, they are worried men, and worry makes people ill; worry affects whole families; worry prevents people from sleeping; worry puts people off their food. It affects the family atmosphere, it puts school children off their work; it can lead eventually to physical illness. There is nothing more debilitating than prolonged worry in the family atmosphere. These men have been worried for a long time now. We see very little sign that they are getting any answer from the Government that will put them out of their uncertainty in one way or another.
We must not forget that these men have invested their lives in their work. They are highly skilled men, as has been said on both sides of the House. For those past middle age the situation is most serious of all. Their skills represent their whole capital in this life.
This is not a party matter. I am sure that the Minister will realise this.


He has been pressed on both sides at Question Time and in speeches to give an answer. It is an answer that we demand to have as quickly as possible.

10.48 p.m.

Mr. Tom Boardman: I was somewhat disappointed with the speech of the hon. Member for Dudley (Dr. Gilbert). I had hoped for a rather more constructive contribution in view of his very sincere concern, which he expressed in his peroration, for the interests of those who are, as we all recognise, worried about the future. In his speech he spoke of not having recriminations about the past. With his right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) sitting near him, they are things he would prefer to avoid, I am sure. He also said that he was concerned with finding out the facts and so on, and in almost the same sentence he referred to uncertainty about the duties of the receiver. If he wishes to know what the duties of the Receiver are, he should either read in the Library how they are defined or have listened to the very clear explanations that have been given from the Treasury Bench to questions about this matter. The duties of the receiver are clearly defined.
It was the speeches of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler), who expressed a sincere interest in the problems facing their constituents, which caused me to intervene. I recognise the interests of their constituents, and, rightly, they both spoke in support of those interests. But I ask that the interests of those constituents, not necessarily just at Hucknall or in other parts of Nottingham, should not be put above the interest of people in other parts who supply the components to which the hon. Member for Dudley referred in rebuilding out of this disaster a strong, viable, profitable unit.
I should like to deal with three aspects—the past, the present and the future. On the past, the great problem is the uncertainty facing the suppliers about whether they will be paid their bills. This is a cause of considerable concern. Hon. Members on both sides of the House may feel that there is some moral obligation in respect of companies which,

from 1968, have been led to believe that this was an underwritten concern. Small businesses, which hon. Members on this side of the House support, often started in people's backyards with a few hundred pounds of savings, have become heavily committed, perhaps unwisely, to one customer. Many of these businesses will suffer severely if the debts owed to them by Rolls-Royce which they have allowed to accumulate cannot be met.
I know that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary is very conscious of that matter and I recognise the grave problems which exist in making distinctions between one firm and another. But if there is anything which can properly be done within the framework of the law and the philosophy which I support I hope it will be done for these small firms.
On the present, it is the uncertainty which is the cause of much concern. I criticised the hon. Member for Dudley at the beginning of my speech, but I share his view about the worry of those who do not know where their future lies, whether they be owners or workers in small businesses, or component manufacturers in Dudley, Nottingham or—and this is of deep concern to me—Leicester. The problems which face my hon. Friend in arriving at the answer are great. We hope that he will be able to find a good solution for them. The sooner that the answer can be found, the better it will be for the peace of mind of all concerned.
Turning to the future, it is here that I join issue with the arguments put forward by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North. He said that the Government should decide whether Hucknall should be retained rather than Filton. I do not believe that this matter can be decided by considering one constituency's interest as against another constituency's interest. The future of what the hon. Gentleman referred to as the human assets—perhaps a rather crude term—will depend on rebuilding from this disaster an aero-engine industry which is viable and profitable. A commercial decision made on proper economic judgments should decide what shape and form it must ultimately take.
I do not believe that any service will be done to those to whom the hon. Gentleman referred as brilliant men—a description which I entirely endorse—if.


in order to maintain their jobs for the time being, we build or locate a structure at a place which is unsuitable. I am incapable of expressing any opinion whether these establishments should be at Hucknall or Bristol or anywhere, but whatever is rebuilt out of all this, let us ensure that we take into account the lessons of the recent past and build the new company in a way in which it will not only be the great technical concern which Rolls-Royce always has been but will be capable of securing the high rewards which we expect and must pay to these men for their skill and brilliance and of earning a proper return on the capital to be invested.
Unless all these constituent parts can be put together correctly and properly, we shall, although saving certain jobs in the short term, be faced inevitably in the future with a similar disaster. Whilst I share all the sentiments which have been expressed about the human problems involved, I hope that my hon. Friend will see that, while talent is important, the decision made will enable us to rebuild our aircraft engine industry in a way which ensures that these human talents can be properly rewarded by a profitable, viable and sound concern.

10.56 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Although I follow the hon. Member for Leicester, South-West (Mr. Tom Boardman) in his defence of the smaller sub-contractors who have been of importance to previous contracts of Rolls-Royce, I hope that he does not think that, basically, the aero-engine or aerospace work of the future can be done in any small or medium-sized country without a large measure of Government support. The whole lesson of RB211 affair for this country, particularly in relation to the aerospace industry, is that projects of this kind will require a large measure of Government support in addition to some of the commercial judgments and values to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Listening to some of the comments and debates in the House over the last few weeks, I have been a little distressed by many of the sentiments expressed on both sides about the RB211, because they seem to have assumed that the contract was as good as done and was not to be saved or renegotiated. It does no

harm for us to be reminded occasionally of the fact that, before 4th February, the TriStar test programme had been going very well. It was on schedule; the engine supplies from Rolls-Royce had been delivered to Palmdale on schedule; the progress towards certification was well advanced on schedule. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology this week—if one can believe the reports, and they are usually accurate—
At Rolls' Derby Engineering Centre, the No. 11 production engine last week was run at a thrust of 42,900 1b., which is the testbed equivalent of 38,700 1b. at the critical hot day performance take-off thrust. Engineers said changes in inlet guide vane geometry will increase hot day performance to just under 4,000 1b. thrust shortly, which is 600 1b. below contract specification.
If a project of this size at this stage of development is only 600 1b. below contract specification, that project is going very well indeed considering the very advanced aero-engine technology we are dealing with.
Despite all the gloomy sentiments, sentiments which at times seemed to want to kill off the project, despite all the gloomy prognostications, both the Tri-Star and the RB211 are still going very well. It is because of this, apart from the sentiments which have been expressed tonight, that I hope that the Minister will be able to give more enlightening news than has been the case in the history of this Rolls-Royce affair so far.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) referred to hyfil carbon fibre blade technology research. It has always been my understanding that carbon fibre blade research would have contributed, had it been entirely successful, and I understand that it has not been far from that, to a great weight saving in the performance of the engine. I wonder whether the Minister can say whether the country is to discontinue this research completely. I am sure that he will agree that if we can maintain our lead in this research, we shall be making an important contribution to the advance of aero-engine developments. We know that one or two of these research projects have already been shipped to the United States, but can the Minister say whether the closure of the hyfil research centre means that we are to pack this up altogether, because, after having tested this project in the Rolls-Royce Conway engines in


the VC10 operated by B.O.A.C. and having taken the project a long way, it seems a tremendous waste of money to the country now to abandon the hyfil blade technology.
It has not been admitted by Government spokesmen—not that much about anything has been admitted by Government spokesmen—that one of the reasons for the cost over-run, for the cost escalation, in the RB211 development may have been that Rolls-Royce was carrying out a dual research project into both titanium blades and hyfil blades. It may be that that is why the project has been dropped. I hope that the Minister will be able to offer enlightenment on this question.
What can the Minister say about the reported seizure of certain RB211 engines from the Pacific Airmotive Corporation of California? This is a matter which my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has tried to raise under Standing Order No. 9, without much success. If the Whitaker Corporation is to set the precedent under Californian law, as it would appear, what will happen to the other Rolls-Royce assets and properties and other things which may be attached to Rolls-Royce, not only under State of Californian law but under State of New York law and under the laws of various other state legislatures in the United States and other national legal systems throughout the world? I shall be particularly grateful for more information from the Minister about this reported seizure by the Whitaker Corporation.
Can the Minister tell us more precisely about the security of the patents? I have been told that Rolls-Royce was paid some £20 million, 48 million dollars, for the Rolls-Royce patents, and the Government are reported to have paid this. Does this mean that Rolls-Royce patents are absolutely secure throughout the world under various other national legal systems? Does it mean that Rolls-Royce affairs are now completely in Government hands? Can the Minister give us any further information?
I should like to stress my constituency interest, representing, as I do a fair proportion of those employed by Rolls-Royce at the Parkside and Ansty factories in Coventry.
It is often assumed that the West Midlands does not have unemployment. I can only say that, if there is any feature which is noticeable and important about the current recession which is being deliberately induced by the Government, it is that the West Midlands has taken its toll and its fair share of unemployment just like the rest of the country. When my constituents come to me at my Saturday morning surgeries asking me to find them jobs, I know that they have tried everything else and I know that the situation is desperate.
It is because the situation is becoming desperate as regards jobs in Coventry that I hope that the Minister and the receiver, with whom he claims to have little contact from time to time, will bear in mind that the unemployment situation in Coventry and the West Midlands, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Dr. Gilbert) has stated, cannot be treated lightly. We have already had lay-offs in my constituency and at Rolls-Royce because of the company's bankruptcy. These are lay-offs and redundancies which have not been directly connected with the RB211 project. They have been connected with the fact that the only assets that many small firms had were the moneys they were owed by Rolls-Royce. In this context, although my hon. Friends have many pressing claims to make about the unemployment situations in their constituencies, I hope that it will not be forgotten that the claim of Coventry and the unemployment difficulties of Coventry are equally serious on this occasion.
I echo the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley in asking when we are to know the price to be paid. It does not provide much comfort to a small firm which is seeking short-term liquidity to engage in tooling up for new projects to be told that the company may be worth about £50 million. I realise that the precise valuation of the company's assets and the precise outcome of the possible renegotiation of the RB211 contract cannot be carried out overnight. I would accept this. My constituents would accept it. The sub-contractors would accept it. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, I stress once more to the Minister the fact that this situation is causing a tremendous amount of worry and it is


adding to the uncertainty which many of my constituents have already witnessed throughout the West Midlands and, indeed, throughout the whole country with already existing bankruptcies of sub-contractors in connection with Rolls-Royce. When a sub-contractor sees other companies around him, and other companies throughout the country, going bankrupt it is very worrying, particularly when the dole queue is lengthening every week. That is the situation in Nuneaton and Bedworth.
I hope that the Minister can give the House some information about what effect he expects the advancing of the payment of investment grants will have for many of the smaller sub-contractors. We were offered a dim ray of hope when the Minister said that the payment of investment grants would be advanced, but does he think that this will provide all that much succour and comfort to companies who were dependent on Rolls-Royce and who are desperately seeking short-term liquidity? Has the Minister's project study team made any precise study of the effects of the advancing of the payment of these investment grants? It is my evidence that, although this was at least a gesture in the right direction, it will not go very far along the road to solving the problems of many small companies.
Has the Minister any other information to offer about what kind of further guarantees or what kind of under-writing or what kind of conversations with the bankers have been considered by his Department? It would be nice, to say the least, to be assured by the Minister that other guarantees have at least been considered. Has the possible offsetting of the payment of S.E.T. or the delaying of the payment of certain other required State contributions been considered? Has any other kind of assistance been considered. If the Minister can provide some information on this, it would be gratifying to many of my constituents to know that at least the Government have thought about it.
Finally, I once more express my hope and make my assertion that this is a project which will continue. It is a project upon which the whole of the British aero-engine industry now depends. We have Concorde, which is going ahead; but with yesterday the Senate voting on

the S.S.T., other things may happen. RB211 represents a very important development in quiet engine technology. It also represents a very substantial capital and human investment in the people and resources of the country.
I hope that when he winds up the debate, the Minister will appreciate that while we express constituency concern and the concern of all hon. Members who have been asked questions by anxious cconstituents who could be unemployed, many of us speak on behalf of the country, which we want to go ahead as an advanced technological nation. We realise that we have not the vast resources of the American budget or the domestic market of the United States, but I think that I speak for all my hon. Friends when I say that we believe that aero-engine technology has a definite rôle to play in the future of this country. Even if the Minister cannot say much about that tonight, can he offer a ray of hope that I can convey to my constituency this weekend?

11.11 p.m.

Mr. E. S. Bishop: The presence of hon. Members for this debate, particularly the presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Berm), my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. William Rodgers) and many hon. Members on the Government benches, in view of the limited circumstances of the debate on the Supplementary Estimate, indicates the importance which we give to the situation facing Rolls-Royce at this time.
I thought that my hon. Friends who have spoken from the back benches got to the core of the problem when they mentioned the human assets involved in this Rolls-Royce drama. There has hardly been a situation for many years in which there has been so much concern, national and international, with all the jobs which are affected and all the prospects underlying that for the future of the British aero-space industry. All this has been tied up with events of the past few months.
In this time the Opposition has been a responsible Opposition. It has demanded information when it felt it necessary and safe to do so and on other occasions it has been responsible enough to recognise that there must be areas of confidentiality. But those areas of


confidentiality must not be abused by the Government in a failure to give information which the Opposition has rightly demanded. Our attitude right from the start has been absolutely open on this. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East has been with us in demanding a White Paper which could give the information and satisfy many of the questions which have been asked time after time in recent weeks.
We have been forthcoming in demands for an inquiry to go into the situation for we have nothing to hide concerning the contract. I reiterate the statement of my hon. Friends that the Government should be willing to publish the contract because there could surely be no matters of confidentiality involved there. I shall not reiterate all the questions which my hon. Friends have asked in recent weeks, some of which have been repeated tonight, but in this situation as it affects human values we demand to know what action of a positive kind has been taken to meet the effects of redundancy. Hon. Members opposite have demonstrated their concern about the way in which this affair has been handled by Her Majesty's Government. There has been no evidence of real consultation with all the parties concerned, no evidence of consultation at management level between the old and the new boards or with the Receiver, the unions, sub-contractors or the workers.
One of the most important aspects of the situation with which we are faced is the vital importance of retaining the confidence of the industry to maintain the workers who have put their lives into it and, probably more than anything else, the importance of keeping design teams together. Without the design teams there can be no future for Rolls-Royce, whatever the situation may be following the negotiations now taking place in Washington. What will happen if the design teams are broken up? Anyone who knows the industry must realise that it takes at least two years to get a team of people to work together in a satisfactory way. There are the air dynamicists, the experts in matters of weight and all the other specialists who take at least two years to get to know each other and appreciate the demands made on each other. A design team, once

it has been broken up, is lost to the industry as a whole, and it is useless until it gets working again.
It is in this situation that we are now negotiating in Washington. It could be very serious indeed if the Government do not do something positive to restore the confidence which is gradually being sapped away from this important Rolls-Royce aerospace industry.
The trade unions are often called irresponsible. My own union, D.A.T.A., is regarded as one of the most militant of unions, but it is these unions which have provided the men of the calibre, experience and skill in recent years to make the Rolls-Royce aero-engine division what it has been, a leader in aerospace technology. These are the people who have a right to demand of the Government that they shall be told where they stand.
In this House, day after day, we have been receiving deputations from Rolls-Royce, from Derby, Belfast, Watford, Leavesden and other places, all demonstrating, by the visits of constituents, that there is widespread concern. They come to ask us, as Members of Parliament, what is happening to their industry and what are the Government's plans because they have no information at the places where they work. Their managements do not know where they stand. They can get no information at all. We all know that consultation and communications are the basis of confidence in the industry, and it is most important at the present time.
My hon. Friend, the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) and the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) have referred to the uncertainty at Hucknall and the dissipation of some of the plant on the hyfil process. Here again we demand an answer to give confidence to those affected. We have heard of the cessation of flight testing at Hucknall and we have heard also of people leaving the industry and going overseas. Here is a situation in which the Government seem to be standing by, suggesting that the people concerned should be looking after themselves. But that is not good enough.
The situation in which the Government have agreed only partially to nationalise the industry is surely one which cannot be defended at this time,


when some of the profitable parts of the industry are being hived off while the Government are carrying those aspects of the industry which are socially necessary but which nevertheless are a possible liability to our resources, financial and otherwise.
All this is taking place at a time when unemployment figures are rising to over 800,000. These people are in a particularly difficult situation because, unlike others who may leave their companies and seek work elsewhere, they are concentrated in these areas and no one can help them because the Government lack any positive policy, except good intentions, in doing what they can to help the people affected.
One is entitled to ask the Government what they are doing to provide alternative work for these people if they leave the industry. The important thing is that they shall not leave the industry but that they stay by their drawing boards and their benches and in their offices in order to make sure that the people negotiating in Washington can assure the Lockheed Corporation and the United States Government that the resources are there if the negotiations succeed, as indeed we hope they do.
We now have no I.R.C., which, in the circumstances in which we are placed, could have given help to Rolls-Royce and other firms, and, indeed, to the subcontractors affected by the failure of Rolls-Royce. Her Majesty's Government should have been more positive in their actions. The nationalisation of the company was meant to be a life-saving operation, but the management, the workers, the sub-contractors, and all concerned, are still struggling in the water. Her Majesty's Government are blindly throwing out lifebelts when they should have been putting lifeboats to sea in readiness for the time when they can see the direction in which they should go.
The House will marvel at the responsibility, tolerance and understanding of the workers who have been so adversely and, in many ways, unnecessarily affected by the prevarication and lack of direction of Her Majesty's Government. We are told that the Industrial Relations Bill has been justified in the circumstances. The lack of direction

has been such that the old board, the new board, the Receiver, the management, the workers and the subcontractors do not know where they stand. They have merely been told by the Government that they must stand on their own feet. Standing on one's own feet is not easy when all concerned are floating in a sea of doubt.
If the Rolls-Royce workers and the sub-contractors acted as they could reasonably be expected to act in the circumstances the Government would have to bring back troops from Northern Ireland to dispel the riots. In all the circumstances, the way in which the Government have handled the situation in the last few weeks has been deplorable.

Mr. Tom Boardman: In view of what the hon. Member has said, will he make clear whether he supports or condemns the action of the Rolls-Royce workers who came out on strike on 18th March?

Mr. Bishop: I am suggesting that in all the circumstances, and in view of the way in which they have been treated in this deplorable situation, a much more militant and, in some cases—as hon. Members opposite would say—unreasonable action might have been expected.

Mr. Boardman: Does the hon. Member support them?

Mr. Bishop: I marvel at the fact that in the circumstances they have been so responsible. People are leaving the industry. No one knows what the position is, and the Receiver is unable to give them any guidance. We do not know the extent to which the Receiver is in charge in relation to the old board and the new board. The Government do not seem able to give any directive. It is quite deplorable that in such circumstances hon. Members opposite should think that by passing the Industrial Relations Bill they can get discipline from people whose militancy might reasonably have been much greater in the circumstances.

Mr. Boardman: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not like to be misunderstood on this point. Perhaps he will make it clear whether, speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, he supports or condemns the action that the workers took on 18th March.

Mr. Bishop: I think that I have made my position clear.

Mr. Boardman: No, you have not.

Mr. Bishop: If they are fair, hon. Members opposite will recognise that in the circumstances in which the workers have been placed—

Mr. Boardman: Does the hon. Member support or condemn?

Mr. Bishop: —we might have expected far more militant action than we have seen.

Mr. Boardman: Answer!

Mr. Bishop: I want to underline the importance of the Government—even at this late hour—doing something, and not only to answer the questions that my hon. Friends have been putting forward time after time. We have been taking the initiative quite responsibly, despite the problems of confidentiality. It is important, even at this late hour, that the Government should assure all those affected that they know what is to be done and where they should be going. If the negotiations in Washington are to succeed there will have to be assurances that the Government are retaining the design teams, preserving the confidence in the industry, and maintaining jobs and the work flow. If that is done, when the negotiations succeed, as we hope they will, the production lines will be going once again.
If the negotiations do not succeed—and we all very much hope that that will not be the case—the Government should have alternative plans ready now in order to assure the workers and all others affected that they have a future, because the future of the aircraft industry depends as much as anything on Rolls-Royce going ahead with production, and with alternative production, even if the RB211 engine is not part of it.
We know very well that one of the negotiating strong points at Washington must be an assurance to Lockheed and the United States Government that there can be no alternative to the RB211 engine without unnecessary delay and higher and escalating costs. Anyone who thinks that it is possible to take an engine out of an aircraft and whip in another in its place in a short space of

time is ignorant of the circumstances of modern aircraft production. It cannot be done, and that is one reason why we must assure the future, not only of the RB211 but of the industry. I emphasise that the Government have a great deal of urgent work to do to restore confidence, the lack of which is sapping the industry, and without which the future of the firm, of this engine and of the aircraft industry itself cannot be assured.

11.26 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation Supply (Mr. David Price): This is the fifth debate in a series of debates on Rolls-Royce since 4th February, when the old Rolls-Royce company went into receivership, and it is a further sign, if it be necessary, of the real and continuing interest and concern of the House over the consequences of that receivership. That has been the theme of all the speeches this evening. Obviously predominant in our minds is the future of the company and of all those connected with it, whether directly or indirectly. The reason for this debate is that Class VI, Vote 19, bears directly on the vital and very complicated problem of how we can produce a meaningful future out of the financial collapse of the old Rolls-Royce company.
I realise only too well how very concerned right hon. and hon. Members on both sides are about the consequences of the insolvency of the old company, and all the speeches have been directed, in part at least, to that aspect of the problem, but it has been especially true of those hon. Members who face daily the very real and understandable anxieties of their constituents who are most directly affected. I would be very insensitive indeed if I did not share to the full the concern of the House.
Hon. Members have posed many questions, and I shall do my best to answer as many as I can tonight. Inevitably, I shall not be able to answer them all, especially some of the more particular and detailed points, but I undertake to write to hon. Members on such questions, because I am also conscious that it would not be the wish of the House that I should detain it for too long. At the same time, I must warn that I have little new to tell hon. Members, and that


applies especially to the negotiations with Lockheed. I am sure the House will agree that this is a very important factor in all our considerations.
As the House knows, high level talks are taking place in America at the present time. The British team is headed by a very senior Cabinet Minister, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, and this is some evidence of the importance which the Government attach to the negotiations. The House will appreciate that it would be quite wrong of me to speculate on the likely outcome of the negotiations, or to attempt to assess the negotiating positions. All hon. Members who have spoken have shown that they understand the necessity for me to remain silent tonight on this important aspect of the future of Rolls-Royce. Those who know me will realise that silence does not come easily to me. I am grateful to the House for its forebearance which I shall emulate. This is why I say that I have little new to tell.

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: We have heard tonight that Lord Carrington and the Attorney-General are returning. Could the hon. Gentleman tell us whether this is, as it were, just an opportunity for consultation at home or whether it marks in any sense a critical point in the negotiations?

Mr. Price: The right hon. Gentleman has the advantage over me because I think that he came to the bench later than I did. Frankly I cannot comment.
I would like to deal with the Supplementary Estimate. The expenditure for 1970–71 which was contained in Class VI Vote 19 is that announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation Supply in his statement to the House on 8th March. As he then said, this Supplementary Estimate for 1970–71 covers the £20 million already advanced to the receiver from the Contingency Fund for the acquisition by the Government of certain assets of Rolls-Royce Ltd. and likely further payments on account to be made to the receiver in the current financial year.
In the debate of 11th March the Lord President of the Council said that the £20 million Maid to the receiver was:
…to meet the acquisition by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom as a neces-

sary act of official policy of all the patents previously held by Rolls-Royce Limited and its subsidiaries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th March, 1971; Vol. 813, c. 666.]
He explained on that occasion the purpose for which this had been done. The £20 million is therefore part of the figure of £30 million we have shown in the Estimate as being required for the purchase of certain assets and parts of the undertaking of Rolls-Royce. The remaining £10 million would be paid to the receiver as a further instalment towards the price to be paid. This may help the hon. Member for Dudley (Dr. Gilbert). The instalment is provided for in the heads of agreement the signature of which was announced on 19th March by my right hon. Friend in answer to a Written Question. As he said in that reply, the heads of agreement provide for payment of a fair price by negotiation between the parties to the heads of agreement.
There will accordingly be further negotiations and pricing of the assets, because this is a complex operation, given the volume of the assets to be precisely defined and evaluated as well as certain other points on which the heads of agreement expanded and elaborated. This process will take some time and would certainly carry us well into the next financial year. Supplementary Estimates will therefore be laid before t?-e House for any further payments which fall to be made to the Receiver on the acquisition of the assets in accordance with the settlement reached about the price for the assets. I hope that this assists the hon. Member for Dudley. The figure of £30 million is accordingly no indication of the total amount which will be paid for acquiring these assets for operation by the new Rolls-Royce. It is just a payment on account. The Supplementary Estimate includes £50,000 for a loan of working capital for Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. pending that company taking possession of the assets and its full capitalisation as a going concern.
It might assist the House if I explained that my right hon. Friend on 23rd February told the House of the setting up of the new nationally-owned engine company Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. He also announced that Lord Cole would be the new company's chairman and the names of those who had agreed to be members of the board of directors. The


board of the new company has since then been able to begin formulating the new company's policies and in particular to plan the transition from receivership to Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. of those parts of the Rolls-Royce Ltd. undertaking which the new company will be taking over.
I am well aware that, until this phase is completed, there will inevitably be uncertainty in the minds of hon. Members, members of staff and the public at large, but with the continuing uncertainty over the fate of the RB211 contract, which forms at present a substantial part of the aero-engine programme of Rolls-Royce Ltd., the new company's board has not been able to make as much progress with formulating plans and policies as they otherwise would have done. It has taken part in negotiating heads of agreement on the acquisition of assets as well as assisting the Government in negotiations with Lockheed about the possibility of a new contract for the RB211.
I am aware that this problem of transition from receivership to Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. is a period we would like to get over as quickly as possible. Hon. Members may have seen in the Press—it has not been given the publicity it might have been given—that Lord Cole announced on 19th March that with the signing of the new agreement it was possible for the new company to begin operations and that this would be done stage by stage in collaboration with the receiver. The first phase would be for the new company to take over certain selling functions.
He announced a number of appointments made to the senior management of the new Rolls-Royce in the technical, financial and personnel fields in preparation for the take-over of functions from the receiver. He added that others would be announced later to enable co-ordination and rationalisation of activities in the various divisions acquired from Rolls-Royce in other fields relating to contracts, marketing and production. The exact date of the company's new assumption of its functions remains to be determined, but co-operation between the receiver and the new Rolls-Royce should ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible and is completed quickly. In this context

"quickly" is a matter of weeks rather than months.
An important aspect is continuity for existing customers of Rolls-Royce. I assure the House that customers of Rolls-Royce for aero engines and for marine and industrial gas turbines need not worry about continuity in supply. They can expect to find the new Rolls-Royce, in consultation as necessary with the receiver, ready to continue dealing with them on long-term as well as on short-term orders. I want to stress this matter because there may be an impression that it is just a holding operation. I would also add that Rolls-Royce customers interested in other products should similarly be able to continue trading with the new company, Rolls-Royce Motors Ltd. set up to carry out the business of Rolls-Royce Ltd.'s Car and Oil Engine Divisions.
I am able to give one little scrap of news to the House. I have been told that the board of the old Rolls-Royce Ltd. have today invited shareholders to attend a special meeting on 19th April, the purpose of which will be to consider a resolution declaring that the affairs of the company ought to be investigated by inspectors appointed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) asked me—and, indeed, answered his own question—about the technical state of the RB211 engine. The RB211 has been performing well in the development flight programme. Various technical problems remain, but I think that we can be reasonably confident that they can be solved. It is time and cost which have the real bearing.
In fact, RB211 engines have been run for a total of 4,073 hours. The latest engine performance has been to 42,300 1b. on a standard day. The thrust on a hot day—"hot day" for this purpose is defined as about 84 degrees Fahrenheit—has been raised to 38,700 1b. I think that the time which has passed in the negotiations with Lockheed is some evidence of the confidence that they have in the capacity of Rolls-Royce to bring the RB211 to the standard that they require for the TriStar.

Mr. Bishop: Can the hon. Gentleman say to what extent these encouraging developments are within the specification


which is aimed at? To what extent have we to do further research and development on these points before we achieve what is regarded as a satisfactory engine?

Mr. Price: I should prefer not to say any more tonight, but I shall be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about that.
I was about to observe that the hon. Members for Nuneaton and Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) asked whether the present state of the RB211 work under a receiver, as they put it, would in any way prejudice the negotiations which are going on. I should like to make it clear that the receiver is being paid by the Government for the RB211 work which is necessary to maintain the ability to continue the project without further delay under a new contract. The day-to-day control of this work is in the hands of a professional officer of my Department stationed at Derby. One of his duties is to maintain the capability to go on with the RB211. So, although in certain other matters it may appear to some hon. Members that certain projects or activities of Rolls-Royce in which they are particularly interested have been prejudiced, as they allege, by the management coming under the receiver, it is not true of the RB211.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: I apologise for not being present at the commencement of the hon. Gentleman's speech. Is he aware that some personnel made redundant in the Derby aero-engine division were working on the RB211? How does he reconcile that with what he has just said?

Mr. Price: I understand that, in a desire to be fair across Rolls-Royce, some of those who were working on the RB211 were made redundant and were replaced by more senior staff or workpeople who moved on to the RB211 work. I understand that this was to ensure equity of treatment across the various Rolls-Royce activities.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) asked a number of questions about the carbon fibre work. I should like, without detaining the House too long, to mention something about this work.
It is necessary, in discussing this topic, to distinguish some of the different establishments and units concerned. Rolls-Royce Composite Materials Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rolls-Royce Ltd. Its objective is to market hyfil carbon fibre for any use to which it can be put; not merely to supply the aeroengine requirements of Rolls-Royce Ltd. for carbon fibre.
One part of the Hucknall establishment of Rolls-Royce Ltd. contains a carbon fibre production unit. At other Rolls-Royce establishments there is research of various kinds, and some of this—for instance, at the Old Hall establishment at Derby—is devoted to carbon fibre.
Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. will be taking over various Rolls-Royce research units, and where these can carry out work on carbon fibre research the new company intends to continue such research on a scale appropriate to its engine programme as a whole. The receiver is in charge of Rolls-Royce Composite Materials Ltd. and will be seeking to dispose of it to the best advantage. I understand that he is also continuing at about half strength the carbon fibre production unit at Hucknall with a view to the contribution which it can make to the prospects of Rolls-Royce Composite Materials Ltd. and hence to the price he can secure when selling those assets. Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. does not propose to take over the Hucknall carbon fibre production unit or Rolls-Royce Composite Materials Ltd.—

Mr. Benn: I hope that I shall be forgiven if I have missed this, but is not the Parliamentary Secretary now making, for the first time, a statement of Government policy on behalf of the Receiver?

Mr. Price: That is what I have been asked for.

Mr. Benn: I am now speaking in a constituency interest. This is the first time that any such statement has been made. It represents a fairly significant statement of policy, that the Government have assented to the Receiver dividing the carbon fibre from Rolls-Royce, without, so far as I know, any public discussion.

Mr. Price: This, I understand, is the decision taken between Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. and the receiver, that the former do not want to take over the assets of Rolls-Royce Composite Materials, whereas they do wish to go on with such of the research work as is appropriate to their aero-engine programme.
The hon. Members for Nottingham, North and Nottingham, South raised the question of reports. They referred particularly to reports in an engineering journal that there had been disappearance of stocks of carbon fibre and machinery from the Hucknall plant. I understand from a member of my staff who spoke to Rolls-Royce at Hucknall that there have been no unauthorised movements of carbon fibre or machinery from the Hucknall plant and that the report is not true.

Mr. Whitlock: The hon. Gentleman said "unauthorised" movements. I did not suggest that there were any unauthorised movements but that there was a movement authorised by someone unknown, in an extremely cloak-and-dagger atmosphere, in the utmost secrecy, so that people on the spot did not know what was going on. This is surely a very strange business.

Mr. Price: The hon. Gentleman is on another question, and I will naturally recheck for him.
The hon. Member for Nottingham, North also criticised the decision to close down the flight testing unit at Hucknall. He received a letter from my right hon. Friend yesterday and I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend said. The hon. Gentleman asked me who took the decision. The answer is very simple: it was the receiver, after consulting the board of Rolls-Royce (1971). The hon. Gentleman has argued the case that Hucknall is to be preferred to Filton. I am not in a position to argue the differences with him, except to reiterate what my right hon. Friend said in his letter. I shall be happy to make any further inquiries and to see whether I can add any more information to what the hon. Gentleman has already received from my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Whitlock: If the hon. Gentleman studies my speech tonight, he will see

that I said that what his right hon. Friend said in his letter to me does not cover all the points which I made a fortnight ago, which were those I made when I led a delegation to see him a week ago. I should like him to check these points and, at the third time of asking, perhaps to answer them.

Mr. Price: I will do the best I can for the hon. Member.

Mr. Benn: I apologise for intervening, but the decision about Composite Materials is a pretty big decision. Here is a piece of research and development work, funded heavily by Government, central to the success of the RB211 when it was sold to Lockhead, which we are told tonight—so far as I know it has not been previously announced—is to be sold as a separate concern.
In making their statement about the acquisition of Rolls-Royce, the Government said that they did it on national security grounds. This composite material, carbon fibre, is, so far as I can make out, to be sold without consultation with the Government. The Minister said nothing about the Government being asked whether they regarded carbon fibre as necessary for their defence or other work. It is evidently to be a purely commercial negotiation. As a purely commercial negotiation, the decision of Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. is to tell the receiver, "We do not want it. You sell it to somebody else".
If this major decision—there was a Select Committee on the subject and the Minister sat on it—has been taken in this way, then it is surprising that it should have been announced in this way, without our having an opportunity to consider the implications fully. Will the Minister amplify what he said? If not, we are bound to regard it as an announcement of a major decision in a most casual and unsatisfactory way.

Mr. Price: I fear that I cannot tonight help the right hon. Gentleman further. However, I note his remarks and undertake to convey them to my right hon. Friend.
I can only repeat what my right hon. Friend has said on a number of occasions about the sub-contractors and suppliers of the old Rolls-Royce company; the Government are very conscious of their


difficulties and anxieties. At present—and this may be slightly encouraging—we are not aware of any substantial number of insolvencies of firms known to be sub-contractors of Rolls-Royce Ltd.
I am not sure what the hon. Member for Dudley, or any hon. Gentleman opposite, wants the Government to do, short of simply picking up the bill on behalf of the taxpayer. That is the logic of some of the speeches we have been getting. But I do not think they are asking us to pick up all the debts of the old Rolls-Royce company when they accuse us of not being helpful. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South-West (Mr. Tom Boardman) pointed out, it is extremely difficult to take one class of unsecured creditors over another and to give them special treatment, for that is what would be involved.

Dr. Gilbert: The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on the original dilemma in which the Government placed themselves by their decision. The more one tries to screw Lockheed, the less will be available for the unsecured creditors. This has always been the trouble with handling the problem in this way. At this stage we are merely asking for information to be given to the sub-contractors as quickly as possible. In other words, how much can the unsecured creditors expect to get? If their fate is to be settled, let them know it quickly.

Mr. Price: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's desire for early information, but until the fate of the RB211 contract is known, it is impossible to say how much will be available, or even begin to indicate it to the unsecured creditors. It is obvious to us all that if the contract is successfully renegotiated, the unsecured creditors will be better placed with regard to whatever final distribution is available.

Dr. Gilbert: There is no difficulty in letting the unsecured creditors know how much might be available in total. The problem which arises from the RB211 situation is to know what total amount the unsecured creditors' claims will be. That is a separate matter, but it is easy to set a price.

Mr. Price: With respect to the hon. Gentleman one just does not set a price like that. If he were to ask the Receiver

now, he would find it difficult to indicate to the hon. Gentleman the total realisation of the sale of the assets of Rolls-Royce. I am trying to help the hon. Gentleman and he is trying to help the sub-contractors. Speculating on what the final realisation of the assets will be and the total of claims will be will not help them. The claims, as the hon. Gentleman rightly recognised, are dependent on whether there will be any further claim if the contract were not renegotiated.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether there were any actions pending for prior claims against the assets of the old Rolls-Royce. I do not know. I do not know what may be emerging somewhere in the pipeline.
I come now to the question raised by the hon. Member for Nuneaton regarding the attachment of RB211 engines in California. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General had planned to be present for this debate to assist the House on some of these legal matters. I am no lawyer, but, if the House will bear with me, I shall read a short statement which I have received on this matter. I ask hon. Members not to question me on it because, not being a professional lawyer, I should almost certainly mislead them if I proceeded to give my interpretation of it.
On 94th March, Marcus Brothers obtained an attachment in Los Angeles Sheriff's Court on five RB211 engines held by Pacific Airmotive en route to Lockheed. Pacific Airmotive undertakes despatch and maintenance for Rolls-Royce. Marcus Brothers was acting on behalf of its parent firm, Whitakers, which is a creditor of Rolls-Royce for nickel supplies. Subsequently, by local agreement between Lockheed, Marcus and Pacific Automotive, the engines were released to Lockheed for use in the flight development programme. But I understand that they remain subject to the court's authority. We have arranged that the receiver will take under the RB211 indemnity such action in California as he may be advised is appropriate to assert and establish his rights under the debenture trust deed.
Next, the question of the patents. Again, this is a matter which should be addressed to my right hon. and learned Friend. I think that the House recognises


that the reason for his absence tonight is more important than the answering of our questions.
Time is going on, and I have probably detained the House a little too long. I undertake to study carefully all the speeches of hon. Members on both sides and to write to them in more detail on some of the questions which they have put to me. I remind the House of the wise concluding words of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South-West, that the new Rolls-Royce can best secure the future of all the people concerned by deploying its activities in the most economic manner. The new Rolls-Royce will have 100 per cent. public ownership of the equity. I recall to the House some wise words of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East when he was speaking from this Box in 1969:
…in my judgment, the greatest political disaster would be if we were to abandon economic criteria in the investment of public money in advanced technology".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1969; Vol. 781, c. 1127.]

Mr. Bishop: I emphasise the seriousness with which we regard the Minister's announcement tonight about the selling off of hyfil, the carbon fibre part of Rolls-Royce. It seems a monstrous way of dealing with the situation. I was about to say that it was completely unreasonable to make the announcement at midnight, in these circumstances, but, of course, the hon. Gentleman could not be aware of the timing.
Surely, the Government and the receiver cannot anticipate at this stage enough, especially at the height of negotiations, about the future of Rolls-Royce and whether the RB211 goes ahead or not, and in the circumstances, the Receiver cannot anticipate whether he ought to sell or to keep the carbon fibre aspects. It would be better if Her Majesty's Government were to make a fairly comprehensive plan for the development of Rolls-Royce, and have it debated, before major decisions of that sort were taken.

Mr. Price: The new Rolls-Royce intends to carry on with carbon fibre research as it might be applied to aero-engines. As the hon. Gentleman knows, one of the delays with the RB211 was in changing from hyfil to titanium. The engine tests I talked about earlier

were always with titanium and not with hyfil.

Mr. Bishop: Is not this an asset that we might later come to feel was of very great commercial value to Rolls-Royce in the research situation, and which in the event could now be commercially exploited by other people? Indeed, we might have to buy back some of the rights to use it.

OVERSEAS AID PROGRAMME

12 midnight.

Mr. George Cunningham: I shall not keep the House long on the Supplementary Estimates and the excess Vote on overseas aid. The Estimates I want to talk about are those contained in the documents 232 and 292 and the excess Vote for 1969–70. We should take every opportunity that presents itself for discussing some of the aspects of the aid programme. We do not have many opportunities.
I begin by supporting the proposal in the Report of the Select Committee on Overseas Aid that we should have an annual debate on overseas aid, preferably on the basis of a comprehensive document so that we can talk about the wider issues, which I should certainly be out of order in raising tonight.
In these Supplementary Estimates the Government are asking for about £13 million net. Therefore, it is worth looking at some of the provisions and the form in which the proposals are put before the House. I hope that the Minister will forgive me if I dwell quite a lot on their form, because this weakens the capacity of Parliament to oversee the expenditure proposed by the Executive.
We are invited here, as in the main Estimates, to pass a number of Votes, all of them dealing with overseas aid, the Votes being the Foreign and Commonwealth Services Vote, the Overseas Aid (International) Vote and the Overseas Aid (General Services) Vote, and occasionally there is a bit in the Pensions Vote. The result is to make the aid picture as it is presented to Parliament so involved and incomprehensible as to discourage Parliament from taking the interest in overseas aid that it should


take, and to make it practically impossible for any hon. Member to understand what he is doing when the provisions pass through the House.
There is also a disadvantage very much related to the Estimates. I am thinking particularly of the excess Vote for 1969–70. The principal reason for which it is required is an additional payment to India, a very sensible additional payment, undertaken towards the end of the year when it was known that expenditure on another Vote would fall short. The necessity for that kind of thing would be reduced if we did the sensible thing and passed one Vote on overseas aid, and did not spread it over a number of Votes. I urge a change in that aspect of our practice. The aid Votes have been cleaned up and tidied up a bit in the past few years. It is now, barely, possible to comprehend them. But they would be much more easily comprehensible if this additional change were made. I ask the Minister to consult his Treasury colleagues who are responsible for the form of the Estimates with a view to making this change.
The partner to that change is to take out of the Vote on aid all the items which do not count as aid. In the Estimates we are discussing there is one—it appears at page 45 in document 232—which contains some items which are counted as aid for public expenditure purposes and some items which are not. We are told the total value of the items which count as aid and the total value of the items which count as defence assistance, but we are not told which is which. This is impertinent. It is not the Minister who is impertinent because he is doing only what Ministers have been doing for donkey's years. This practice should be terminated. If this were a self-respecting Legislature, it would not be tolerated that public expenditure should be controlled on the basis of regarding some things as aid and the Government ask Parliament to vote money but do not tell us what falls into which category.
The Minister should support a change so that we have one vote on aid which deals only with aid and does not cover anything else, and then it would be a great deal easier for all involved, including the Minister, to understand how the Estimates fit in with the figures with which we are all much more familiar—

the ceiling figures which get the publicity for the aid programme.
The other aspect of the presentation of the aid figures to the House with which I want to quarrel is the almost total absence of supporting material. I would not want us to go to the extreme to which the Americans go and present to the House massive documents which no one would read explaining every detail of what the Government think they are doing in certain countries. But we need to go some way from the opposite extreme where we are now. In document 232 there is a small provision in respect of aid to the Maldive Islands. The only explanation given of the purpose of the aid is that it is towards the rehabilitation of the economy of the islands. One might as well have nothing at all as have that. We want to know to what sector of the economy of the Maldives the money is being applied and the Government's objective within the Maldives We need some indication of what they think they are doing in the Maldives and how the aid they are providing is linked with some stated economic objective there.
I commend to the Minister the form in which the Americans deal with this matter. They state in respect of each recipient country a small number of sectors, perhaps in each country, on which they are concentrating. They might say, for example, that in country X they feel that the major impediment to growth is in technical education and therefore they propose to concentrate two-thirds of the aid on technical education. Usually there will not be just one sector identified as the obstacle to growth; there will be several. This process, although one could be very critical of it if it were taken to extremes, would be a wonderful encouragement to clarity of mind on the part of the executive.
Since muddled thinking and doing what was done last year is a temptation to which every aid programme in the world is subject, as well as many other aspects of policy, it is important that the initiators of the proposals should be forced to state somewhere what they think they are doing. It would be no fault of theirs if, after a year or two, it turned out that their actions did not achieve the objective. But that would be as good for them as it would be for Parliament itself to see how policy could


be changed in future in order to achieve objectives.
Another feature of the Estimates—returning to the question of the combination of aid and non-aid items—is that even items which do come within the aid programme seem rather questionably so defined. A considerable part of the money in the Estimates is for what can broadly be defined as relief aid. Relief aid of about £100,000 is provided for Malaysian flood relief. There is emergency relief to East Pakistan and what is called "rehabilitation money" totalling £280,000 for Nigeria, presumably to build up physical resources after the civil war.
I would not contest that there is a vague line between what can properly be called and what should not be classified as aid. There will always be items somewhere in the grey border area. But one must resist the inevitable temptation to classify as aid any item of expenditure provided to other countries because that way lies the adulteration of the aid programme and its transformation into a ragbag into which the political side of the Foreign Office can push all sorts of little expenditures for which it cannot otherwise find the money.
In 1964, when the old Ministry of Overseas Development was established, it was specifically stated not to be responsible for relief aid. It may be a questionable doctrine that the political side of the Foreign Office should deal with relief assistance and that the development administration should not, but it is a useful one for establishing that there are some transfers of resources generally regarded as of help to other people which should not be classified as development assistance.
We should look carefully at the inclusion of these relief aid items within the aid programme. When people hear that the Government have decided to provide £1 million to help Pakistan cope with disaster, I do not think they imagine that the money is coming out of funds which were going to be spent anyway. They think that it is a gesture of generosity and that we are putting our hands into our pockets a £1 million deeper than we otherwise would have done.
If relief aid is taken out of the aid programme allocation in such cases, all we are saying is, "Out of the generosity

of our hearts we are taking £1 million from India and giving it to you", because India would probably have been the recipient of a large part of the £1 million of aid which the British Government has thereby transferred. It is worth looking at the question of transferring relief aid administration in the Foreign Office.
I want to deal with several individual items. For example, there is provision for an increase of £18,000 for administration expenses for the British Indian Ocean Territory, on page 36 of document 232. It has always been my understanding that what mattered about the British Indian Ocean Territory was that it did not have a population. I thought that it was devised as bits of territory which did not have a population in order that there would not be a population which could cause trouble and take it away from us later, that it was to be a secure base where no political trouble could arise.
I was confirmed in that belief by the Commonwealth Year Book which says that it is a group of islands all owned by the Crown and with no permanent population on any of them. It says that the inhabitants are mainly labourers employed on contract by the lessees of the islands and that the transient population varies considerably, but is just over 1,000, with no permanent population.
If there is not a permanent population, to whom are we providing aid? This is money for the administration of the British Indian Ocean Territory and the only point of the B.I.O.T. is to provide a possibel defence or communications base for the British. The cost of running it has nothing to do with development assistance, and yet that money is classified as part of the aid programme.
Someone has put one over on the Minister and got that little bit of rag into the bag. It is a small item, but it has got through. The fact that we are providing money for the administrative expenses of assisting a potential British base does not mean that it is overseas aid which ought to be meted out. This is probably the best illustration of the dangers to which any aid programme is open. I am not asking the Minister to answer these points tonight, particularly as some have ocurred to me only lately tonight and I have not given him notice of them.
Another example is the advances to Rhodesian officers, page 74 of the document. I should be surprised if those advances to these officers were sufficiently of developmental relevance to justify the money being taken out of the aid programme money.
There is another item which I should like to call the "Malta gin bill". This is the provision of compensation for loss of customs and excise revenue in Malta, and the figure is £400,000, grant, not loan. At least part and perhaps the whole of that is compensation to the Government of Malta for the nice but peculiar fact that British forces in Malta get duty-free drink. It may be very nice for the British forces stationed in Malta, and if the British Government care to provide that aid to British forces stationed abroad, that is up to them. But how it can be classified as aid to the people of Malta I do not know.
I should like the Minister to let me know some time how much of that £400,000 is for the purpose I have described and whether he is satisfied that it is proper to take that money out of the aid programme. I am raising this not as an individual point, although I should like to hear the answer at some time, but as an illustration of the kind of thing that can get into the aid programme, that may be slipped in without the Minister ever getting to know about it.
I should like finally to give what is more of a warning than anything else. There is a provision on page 55 to provide Malawi with assistance so that she may meet her share of the topping up of the Central African Pension Fund. There is a legal obligation to top up that fund on the Malawi and other Governments. Therefore, if we help them to fulfil what is their legal obligation I agree that it is aid to Malawi and should come out of the aid programme.
One of the other Governments who are obliged to top up this Fund are the British Government. I should like to be satisfied that the British contribution to the topping up is not being counted as aid. The legal obligation for the British contribution lies on Britain. That money may be going out to officers living in Central Africa or living in Eastbourne, but by no criterion could it be regarded

as assistance to any other Government to do something or to provide facilities for their population.
The next aspect of the way in which we deal with the voting of aid which I want to take up is the annual accounting. I am glad that the Select Committee's Report makes the proposal that the Minister should be able to carry over to the next year funds approved in one year but not spent in that year. The present system causes a great deal of waste. It makes for a situation in which the Minister is forced towards the end of the year to try to find purposes on which to spend some of his money.
Everybody who noticed it would be very worried about the reply which the Minister gave to my right hon. Friend the former Minister for Overseas Development on 22nd March, as follows:
At the end of February approximately £150 million of the basic programme of £212 million…had been disbursed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd March, 1971; Vol. 109, c. 2.]
The Minister then gave an equivalent figure for the additional aid programme and indicated that there would be heavy expenditure in March. I do not think that anyone would believe that whatever the March expenditure is—I do not know of any reason why it should be unusually heavy—it would bring £150 million to within seeing distance of £212 million. If that gap exists, it is much wider than the gap which has normally existed in the past. In the previous year the then Minister for Overseas Development went out of her way to find sensible purposes on which to spend money so that she did not fall short of the sum which Parliament had decided to spend. This is one reason why we are approving this £7½ million extra tonight. Whether a shortfall of £62 million is normal, normally there is a shortfall.
That happens partly because of our system of annual accounting. It results, as there is this spare capacity at the end of the year, in non-aid items such as I have mentioned getting shoved into the total and then the following year, the precedent having been set, the Minister is saddled with those non-aid items, has to carry them, and still ends up with a shortfall in the next year between the total of aid and non-aid items and the ceiling he is supposed to spend. That


is one of the consequences of our proceeding on an annual accounting basis.
It also encourages bad projects being put forward. The one we are dealing with tonight is not a bad project. The provision of £71 million at the end of the financial year for this purpose is laudable. The assistance we provide to India is far too low compared with its population and influence and is, in comparison with the assistance we provide to countries like Gibraltar and Malta, judged per head of the recipient country's population, grotesque.
There is a temptation, if an attempt is being made to fill up the expenditure list at the end of the year, to go for bad projects. This will always be so if the Minister knows that come the end of the year, if he has not spent his allocation, it is not added to his allocation for the following year.
It is high time that we put this nonsense right. The Minister will be told that it would be totally contrary to British financial practice to do what I am suggesting. It would be nothing of the kind. Canada, which has basically the same parliamentary system as ours and the same practices of financial control, has got round this with great ease and sees no problem about it. I commend to the Minister the two systems employed by the Canadians on loans and grants respectively to get round this problem. This has also been drawn to attention by the Pearson Committee. Everyone agrees that to set a figure for a year, and if one does not spend it one cannot have that amount next year is a crazy way of doing things.
If the Minister cannot get round the imagined parliamentary difficulty as the Canadians have done it, I commend to him the fall-back provision by which, if he gets £5 million one year he gets £5 million added to his ceiling next year, with parliamentary approval for the addition. He may have difficulty in getting his colleagues to agree, but obviously it is common sense. Second choice though it may be, this would give practical effect to the kind of recommendation made in the Select Committee's Report.
In these documents we are, as usual, informed of the repayments of capital

and interest flowing back to this country so that we may be aware of that in voting the outgoings. It is high time that we thought of voting the net figure. This problem will get bigger and bigger as this decade goes on. We are receiving back about £6 million a year in capital and interest and it will amount to about £100 million by the end of the decade, yet Parliament will kid itself that it is providing the gross figure while ignoring the flow-back to this country.
A particular point in the nonsense to which I draw attention is the provision for the Commonwealth Development Corporation. The way in which the Corporation is financed is very sensible and does not have any great disadvantages for the C.D.C., but in the expression of Britain's total aid expenditure and making that as realistic as possible it is absolutely crazy. As the Estimates point out, if the Government wish, the C.D.C. is entitled to borrow from the Government to repay money previously borrowed from the Government. If the Treasury rate drops by a point and the C.D.C. therefore wants to reduce the interest burden of the debt, it may be given permission to borrow £10 million from the Treasury at 8 per cent. to discharge existing obligations to the Treasury which are going at 9 per cent.
If it did that—this is the most extreme example of the lunacy of doing these things—the British aid programme would show a rise of £10 million because the additional borrowing would be counted as aid and that amount would not be netted off before counting. Yet the more the interest rate was reduced, the less normal aid would be left in the programme. This does not matter very much from the point of view of the C.D.C. and that is why, although the Select Committee recommended that consideration should be given to the problem, it did not express the recommendation very strongly. When examined on the subject, the C.D.C. said that it would like to see this done but did not think there was much hone of it and no one had put pressure behind it.
I hope that the Minister will take the point which I am making, which is related not to the Purposes of the C.D.C. at all but to the way of accounting for the programme as a whole, and will see


whether something can be done to convert the financing of the C.D.C. into a revolving fund basis, or at least ensure that the repayments should be netted off before we vote the aid for the C.D.C. There is a case for doing that more on C.D.C. than there is for doing it on bilateral aid, sensible though it would be on bilateral aid, too.
My last point of substance is that there is evidence in these Estimates of the constant danger of aid programmes spreading the jam too thinly. There are some provisions for very tiny quantities of aid to the Malagasy Republic, Togo, Chad and such places. These do not necessarily contain the totality of all that we provide to these countries. Nevertheless, I argue that we are spreading the jam too thinly.
I know the temptations to which Ministers responsible for overseas aid are subject, under pressure from ambassadors, to give something to everybody, but those pressures have to be resisted if the aid programme is to be effective and if people are to see the results of the aid that is provided. One little bridge in Chad cannot be said to produce identifiable results. It is better to concentrate the aid so that one can hopefully see some results from what one is doing.
There is in these provisions additional money for the Overseas Development Administration itself. I cannot resist reminding the Minister that when the reconstruction of central Government machinery was brought before the House it was indicated that one of the results of what I regard as the mistake of terminating the Ministry of Overseas Development and putting its functions into the Foreign Office was to save money. That is not long ago, and there has not been much time in which to save money; and it would be disastrous to save money on this anyway. When one is spending £200 million it makes sense to spend 2 per cent. of it to make sure that one is spending that money in the proper way.
We are, in fact, being asked for more money for the Overseas Development Administration, and the prospects of a reduction in expenditure by reason of the abolition of the Ministry of Overseas Development does not appear at the moment to have been realised.
I hope that on these points which I have mentioned we shall be able to improve the presentation of our aid figures to the House, not just because it is the duty of the executive to put things clearly and to explain the reasons why they are doing them but because the very rational presentation of them and the necessity to do so is likely to clarify the thoughts of those who are initiating the proposals and to improve the understanding of the aid programme on the part not only of Parliament but also of the public outside.

12.33 a.m.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood): The hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) began by drawing my attention to the presentation of the Estimates. I have considerable sympathy with him because I have always found considerable difficulty in understanding the presentation of any Estimates. However, I feel bound to say that I found these Estimates rather easier to understand than others that I have pored over in the past.
I think that the hon. Gentleman's desire for greater simplicity may possibly lead him into directions which he would not particularly welcome. The overseas aid Votes have been reduced, as he pointed out, to three in number, and certainly it would be possible to consider some further reduction.
The hon. Gentleman began his remarks by suggesting that there were too few opportunities in the House of Commons for us to discuss aid, and again I have a certain sympathy with that view. I should like to have more opportunities because it is a very important subject. The presentation of perhaps a single Vote would tend to reduce the opportunities and the amount of parliamentary control, because it would afford Parliament less opportunity to exercise its authority over both the direction and the use of the aid programme. Therefore, this called-for simplicity—with which I have sympathy—might lead the hon. Member in a direction that ostensibly, he would not welcome.
The hon. Member talked about the necessity for as much information as possible, and mentioned particularly the need for information about certain countries. Again, this is important. I should like


to see that Parliament is provided with as much information as it would like and would need about certain countries and about all aspects of the aid programme. The Estimates are not necessarily the most informative documents issued on this subject, or any other. We issue a full statistical digest each year showing the allocation under every heading and to every country. That is probably more useful than the Estimates that we produce. As I said in answer to a Question by the hon. Member earlier this week, we also publish our Report of the Development Assistance Committee. That has been published as a White Paper for the last two years. We also publish White Papers of a broader kind from time to time, and I am contemplating the publication of one in the reasonably near future.
The hon. Member was kind enough to give me notice of several of the subjects that he raised tonight. He also raised a number of detailed points, which he was kind enough to say he would be grateful if I wrote to him about. I shall do so. I shall give him an explanation of all the detailed points that he raised in the earlier part of his remarks.
The hon. Member raised the general point of relief aid and the proprietary of including it in the aid programme. He admitted the difficulty of differentiating relief aid from rehabilitation and, in the case of Nigeria, aid for reconstruction. I saw this difficulty with my own eyes when I was in Pakistan at the end of last year, at the time of the floods. It is difficult to differentiate, and I accept that certain provisions should not rightly count in a programme concerned with development. I shall look into the detailed points that the hon. Member has raised and try to write to him about them.
He raised two main questions—first, the Commonwealth Development Corporation and, secondly, the spending of the allocation of aid during the financial year. At the moment I am discussing with the Corporation its capital allocation for the ensuing year. I hope that it will be possible to increase that allocation. But that is not the hon. Member's complaint. I know his complaint, because he has put it to me before, at Question Time. He expressed it again this evening. Broadly, he would like what he

describes as a revolving fund. I have two thoughts to put to him on that.
First, when the C.D.C. was first thought of, Parliament initiated a system which it felt gave adequate scope to the C.D.C. and the proper financial control to Parliament. As I think I explained to the hon. Gentleman in answer to a Question some time ago, I should be perfectly willing to look at the advantages which he feels a change in the system would have. I suggested to him then, and do so again now, that Parliament over the years, and in the renewal of the Overseas Resources Development Act, has taken the view that the existing system probably achieves the twin objectives of adequate flexibility for the C.D.C. and adequate control for Parliament, and has not yet been impressed by the advantages he urges—

Mr. George Cunningham: I know that the Minister must say that the system is one that was passed by Parliament and that we must therefore assume that Parliament knew what it was doing, but that is not the case. Parliament did not know what it was doing. It passed the provisions for the C.D.C. as it passes these Estimates—because the executive put them forward. Responsibility lies with the executive in practice, whatever may be the theoretical position, and one cannot say that it was Parliament which wanted to do this. This was a proposal put to Parliament, and this is what Parliament passed without much thought with less thought than was given by the Executive to the proposal in the first place.
Another point—and I apologise for intervening at such length—is that the situation has changed since the system was started. When we did not have an aid ceiling this question was of no importance. It has acquired the disadvantages to which I have referred only since we have had the aid ceiling. What Parliament at first did was very close to having a revolving fund which imposed a top limit on the amount of debt the C.D.C. could have outstanding at any one time. It is only since we have had the present system with its aid ceiling that we have had these disadvantages.

Mr. Wood: I almost feel that I should apologise to the hon. Member for interrupting him. I do not deny that Parliament may not always have realised what


it was doing—it has had certain lapses recently—but on this occasion it repeated an action which it had initiated after the war. But perhaps I can set the hon. Gentleman's fears at rest with the thought that not only his suggestions to me over the last month or so but also the suggestion of the Select Committee that this matter should be examined will certainly be acted upon. I hope before very long to be able to give a considered response to the Select Committee's Report. It is one of the matters which the Select Committee has asked me to look at, as has the hon. Gentleman.
A point of great substance in the hon. Gentleman's remarks was the likely out-turn of the aid programme this year. He quoted an answer I gave to the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), my predecessor, last Monday, and the Press, I notice, has suggested that there was to be a massive shortfall because only a proportion of the aid allocated had been spent up to the end of February. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman, with his great knowledge of the subject, is likely to fall into similar error. He knows that disbursements in this field and in other fields of public expenditure are naturally always very heavy in March. I am ready to admit that there may be a shortfall, but I do not think that it will be very large, and it will certainly be nothing conceivably like the shortfall that exists now. I think the hon. Gentleman accepts that view.
Last year my predecessor was very successful. She managed to spend £204 million out of a £205 million basic programme. In the previous years there had been an average shortfall of about £5 million. The hon. Gentleman will recognise the difficulty of administering an aid programme in 80 countries. His final remarks tended to criticise the number of countries that we aid. There are a great variety of circumstances which may change rapidly and awkwardly towards the end of the financial year. It seems that there is an inbuilt likelihood of underspending. There is the estimating adjustment which, when I first came to it, sounded like raising the sights of a rifle to fire above the bull's eye and hit the bull—if lucky!
There is the prospect, with Treasury agreement, that the estimating adjustment will be substantially increased next year. That is to the good. There will still be difficulties if circumstances change in the receiving countries late in the year as frequently happens. I shall always be concerned if O.D.A. does not spend all the money it is authorised to spend by Parliament. Frankly I am less concerned about the possibility of a shortfall this year than by the future capacity of my Department effectively to spend a much larger aid programme. This was in the hon. Gentleman's mind, I believe.
The programme will be a good deal larger next year and will be about 50 per cent. greater in cash terms in 1974–-75 than the present programme. I am conscious that over the next three or four years this problem will get increasingly more difficult. I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that I am urgently considering ways in which to make sure that the large sums authorised by Parliament and provided by the taxpayers will be spent in the next four years. I thank the hon. Gentleman and the Select Committee for making this point. It is one of the matters which I shall study carefully and include in the considered response I make to the Committee's report. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to it tonight.

SHIPBUILDING (CLYDESIDE)

12.48 a.m.

Mr. Dick Douglas: I will try to be concise and I hope that if I hurry through my speech I shall not be thought disrespectful. The House has had a difficult, arduous week and I do not want to detain hon. Members unduly.
One thing I had better make clear, in view of the commonness of the name "Douglas" on Clydeside, is that I am in no way a relative of the present managing director of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. I must make that point for obvious reasons.
The point I want to draw to the attention of the House is Civil Estimate Class IV, Vote 15, subhead G.1. relating to the Shipbuilding Industry Board. The Board


was set up under the 1967 Act to make grants in connection with reorganisation of resources.
This Vote in the past has enabled certain regroupings and restructuring to be undertaken in the shipbuilding regions, particularly on Clydeside. One of the mergers which has resulted from the activities of the Shipbuilding Industry Board is the creation of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. That group has undergone a great deal of financial and structural difficulty and happily we are now seeing some indication that many of the difficulties are being overcome. I should like to be optimistic about the group's future, but I am afraid that my own commercial judgment and knowledge of the shipbuilding industry would not lead me to such a conclusion at this time. The yard under its new direction has met with considerable success in obtaining new orders and in assessing the market.
The Shipbuilding Industry Board has tried to carry into operation the recommendations of the Geddes Committee which argued the case for a restructuring of the industry. On page 90 of its report in regard to the Clyde the Committee said:
There is, however, a division between the upper and lower reaches which in terms of tradition and travelling time may be significant. Rationalisation would thus provide for more than two groups
The argument in relation to the reorganisation of resources is that one should have not more than two groups and Geddes argued on those lines. I feel that the Shipbuilding Industry Board should look at the future prospects of industry in the Clyde and that we should be moving towards one group for the Clyde.
One point in the Geddes Report that is likely to be made much less difficult is the argument about travelling time. In the past we have managed to plough considerable resources into road works, and particularly tunnels and bridges. The new Erskine bridge affords the opportunity to increase the mobility of labour between the north and south banks of the river. We should be using the resources of the Shipbuilding Industry Board to try to get these two groups on the upper and lower reaches to anticipate future trends.
One proposal which might be expected is the abolition of the Shipbuilding Industry Board. It was not expected that the Board would continue ad infinitum but that it would have a limited life. Personally, I feel that it would be extremely premature to end the activities of the Board when the industry has not resolved its difficulties. I would argue strongly against abolition of the Board when I consider that it still has a job to do. If this matter is left to the Government whose attitude is to look at reorganisation on the basis only of commercial judgment, then any reorganisation in terms of better communications, and so on, will not take place without further pain and suffering.
The second issue refers specifically to a Defence Estimate. Therefore, I recognise the Minister's difficulty in responding fully and wholly to the points I wish to raise under this heading.
In a statement to the House on 11th February the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said:
In view of the importance of Yarrow (Shipbuilders) for the present orders and future programme of the Royal Navy, it has been decided that the Ministry of Defence should make a loan to Yarrow (Shipbuilders), on terms to be agreed".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1971; Vol. 811, c. 809.]
In the Estimates, Yarrow (Shipbuilders) is shown to be building several frigates for the Royal Navy. Therefore, it is arguable that the Government, in looking at the structure of U.C.S., had to consider the liquidity position and what would happen, if they did not plough resources into the group as a whole, to resources which were necessary for the nation's defence. I should not want to enter into discussion with the Minister on that score.
What concerns me is the in-and-out position of Yarrow (Shipbuilders). This company was brought into the group as the S-yard—the specialised yard—in the Geddes scheme of regroupings. We are now to take out the S-yard, for good reasons, in terms of the future of Yarrow & Co. Ltd., the overall holding company, by means of a loan to Yarrow (Shipbuilders)—a loan for which there is no public accountability and which is to be given on terms yet to be agreed by the Ministry of Defence. This loan will enable Yarrow, as it were, by the back door, to buy its way out of the 51 per


cent. holding which U.C.S. has in its organisation. The company, as it were, extracts itself by this method and we, therefore, plough some liquidity' into U.C.S. The Government may want to do this, but there were other organisations which they could have used for this purpose. I do not think that this is a desirable way to go about strengthening the liquid position of U.C.S.
We have to consider British shipbuilding as a whole. While the world market has increased five times in the past 20 years, British output has remained virtually static in a growing market. If we are to have a viable industry, the viability of shipbuilding on the Clyde as a whole has to be considered. In this respect we are thinking, directly or indirectly, of the employment of over 40,000 people on Clydeside. If we consider the reverberations of any difficulties in the shipbuilding industry then we must realise that 40,000 people would be affected in Scotland.
I have argued, looking to the future, for the creation of one group on Clyde-side. I realise that the Government would not want to anticipate any policy decision in relation to that matter. But if we annihilate the Shipbuilding Industry Board we deny ourselves the opportunity, by persuasion, of bringing the groups on Clydeside together to discuss such aspects as joint ordering of materials, joint consultations with suppliers, and so on.
While the Shipbuilding Industry Board has been reasonably successful in obtaining the restructuring of groups in shipbuilding, it has done nothing whatsoever in the important sphere of restructuring the marine engineering industry, particularly in the heavy diesel and turbine engine sector. The Geddes Committee argued that we needed to consider restructuring this section of the industry, and nothing has been done.
It is a tragedy of British engineering that we have not been able, apart from the Doxford "J" type, to design a successful commercial heavy diesel engine. There is still a need for some organisation to persuade the various concerns in marine engineering, particularly the heavy side, to create viable units. So I am arguing for the continuation of the board, because I believe that

it has a function to perform. I should not like to put any length on its life—I realise that these organisations cannot always be kept in existence—but to end it prematurely would be disastrous for the shipbuilding industry and for the people of the Clyde in particular.
The reason that I raise this matter when I do not have a Clydeside constituency is that my constituents are directly affected by the future of shipbuilding. A considerable number are employed in the industries which cater for the auxiliary machinery for ships and their engines. So it is important to them and to the castings industry, which represent, that shipbuilding on Clyde-side should continue to be viable.
I ask the Minister to consider my points and to give some indication that these Votes will not necessarily be the last Votes for the Shipbuilding Industry Board, and that we shall be discussing these Estimates for many years to come.

1.3 a.m.

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) on having raised two very important points. Second, I invite the Minister to clear up some uncertainty created by the speech of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry at the Press Gallery lunch, which has been the occasion of a Motion on the Order Paper. This was a public, not a private occasion.
Speaking about the policy of the Government, in one paragraph in particular the right hon. Gentleman said:
In saying this, I underline, by contrast, that we do not believe by Prices and Incomes Boards to control the wages they pay or the prices they charge; by Industrial Reorganisation Corporations to impel them to marriages they do not contemplate, providing them with dowries they do not justify; by Shipbuilding Industry Boards to induce them to undertake projects whose success they are not organised to attain; by Industrial Expansion Acts to stimulate them to expansions not within the capacity of the resources they can organically command; and so on through the whole gamut of policies and institutions designed to confuse the judgment of business men within their own field of comprehensions by considerations wholly outside it.
That paragraph, which I am pleased to place on the record of the House, equates the Shipping Industry Board with three other institutions which the


Government have already abolished—the Prices and Incomes Board, the I.R.C. and the Industrial Expansion Act—and dismisses these as part of a "gamut" of policies devised to "confuse the judgment of business men".
I have two points on that. First, that statement about a public board, the Shipbuilding Industry Board, which is of concern to all the shipbuilding constituencies, should have been made not at the Press Gallery lunch but in the House. Second, will the Minister tonight explain what the policy of the Government is with regard to the board?
I will just set it in its historical context. The S.I.B. was set up in response to the recommendations of the Geddes Committee, and initially it was intended that it should run until the autumn of 1970, with a possible extension of one year.
If my memory serves me right, I extended it by one year, taking it to the end of the current year. Or perhaps I announced that extension and the present Government put it into operation. Either way, the board is due to end its statutory life at the end of this year.
It was argued—I argued it myself—that because there was a strong case for the industry feeling that the work of the S.I.B. was limited in time, the industry should take advantage of the board while it lasted. However, that is totally different from announcing its demise as part of a new and different ideology of an incoming Government and totally different from dismissing its work as one of those
institutions devised to confuse the judgment of business men.
Although shipbuilding has made a significant advance, it still has formidable problems of organisation and management to overcome. Anybody representing shipbuilding and hearing that remark —about its being devised to confuse—would be bound to be anxious. This anxiety has been reflected by hon. Members on both sides of the House, including the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward).
I hope, therefore, that in replying the Minister will either explain the Government's policy more clearly or say when we may expect a statement from his right hon. Friend on the subject.

1.7 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I am happy to try to answer some of the questions that have been asked about a matter which is extremely important not only for Clydeside but for the country as a whole. The Government have been giving the closest study and attention to the subject, and, on a personal note, it occupies a large proportion of my time.
I am in some difficulty in that my right hon. Friend will be making a major statement on shipbuilding policy on the Second Reading of the Shipbuilding Industry Bill, and I do not wish to anticipate him on that occasion. In any event, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) will agree that this is not the time to make major pronouncements of policy; that is, when there are so few hon. Members present and when the large number of hon. Members who are interested in this whole subject are not in their places. I will, therefore, confine my remarks to dealing with, though not being able to answer many of, the questions that have been asked.
As the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East rightly said, the Shipbuilding Industry Board's life comes to an end at the end of this year. It was prolonged for a further year, by Order laid by the present Government and not by him. We were to have debated that, but unfortunately the Order was not reached because of the intense interest of hon. Gentlemen opposite in the Fire Precautions Bill, which was a pity because I had hoped to make some remarks about the board on that occasion.
It comes to an end at the end of this year by Act of Parliament, and, therefore, unless an Act is brought forward extending its life, it will automatically end. What arrangements will be made to take its place must be left for my right hon. Friend's speech.
On the occasion cited by the right hon. Gentleman, my right hon. Friend was referring to the functions of the S.I.B. concerning groupings, which brings me to the speech of the hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas).
The question of compulsory groupings was never one which made us feel very easy. Perhaps I use the wrong word. The groupings which were in the mind of


the board, or, before that, in the mind of the Geddes Committee, may have seemed to make good sense, but they were not welcomed by the participants. This is one part of the work of the Shipbuilding Industry Board which we have never considered entirely desirable.
With hindsight, one can point to some evidence to support that view. It is surprising that several of the most successful shipyards in this country have not been amalgamated with any other or have, perhaps, made a voluntary merger with another shipyard, without much help or coaxing by anyone, whereas some of the big groups which have been put together under pressure from the board are not showing up at all happily at the present time. I do not want to make too much of that, but it cannot be said that the evidence of the restructuring of the shipbuilding industry leaves one with great confidence, as it would have done if all the restructured groups had been highly successful and those left out were not.
We do not, therefore, believe that the rôle is in any case one which is helpful to the industry. My right hon. Friend was quite right to use those words—"designed to confuse the judgment of management"—which the right hon. Gentleman quoted, because it can well be that a group scheme has the effect of joining the weak on to the strong and bringing down both as a result, which is not in the interest of either the weak or the strong.
We shall not, therefore, seek to prolong that function of the board, nor introduce any provisions to do it ourselves. Nor, I think, will the right hon. Gentleman find that there will be loans or grants available for the purpose specifically of assisting mergers and take overs in the shipbuilding industry.
I come now to the Clyde, the hon. Gentleman's interest. On behalf of the Government, I would not express any view on whether there should be not more than two groups, whether there should be more or fewer, or just one group. It seems to me not to be within my knowledge on within anyone else's knowledge save that of the people actually concerned in running shipyards on the Clyde.

Mr. Douglas: After a very searching inquiry, at that point of time the Geddes

Committee concluded that there should not be more than two groups. This point is not made in a vacuum. I have said that we have moved on from there, and the infrastructure on Clydeside has altered. I am looking not for a distinct prophecy but for a certain indication from the Minister of how the Government view the future.

Mr. Ridley: No, the evidence runs strongly against the hon. Gentleman. The Yarrow shipyard was put into the Upper Clyde group, very much against the will of the Yarrow board. It stayed there for three or four years, and the results were not at all satisfactory. When the proposition was made that Yarrow should leave the Upper Clyde group, there were few left who contested the decision that that should happen. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman himself set in motion the events which led to Yarrow's withdrawal, which was hastened forward by this Government—although we ran into some difficulties, to which I shall refer. But the principle that Yarrow should leave was accepted in most quarters, though not, I believe, in all, because the actual working of the merger proved not to be successful.
Equally, I think that the Lower Clyde group is not in the mood to join with the Upper Clyde group. Who am I to say that it is wrong? I certainly do not believe that one can appoint a committee which says that this, that and the other firm should or should not merge, and that that is such a wise view that it must be implemented against the view of the parties.
As regards the Clyde shipbuilding industry, it would be a brave man who could say how many companies there should be, and whether existing companies should or should not amalgamate. The fact that communications have improved between the Upper Clyde and the Lower Clyde groups due to the building of the bridge is very welcome, and this I am sure will help the employment of labour and the flexibility of employment between the two main shipbuilding areas on the river. If in due course it appears to the managements of the companies there that they should get together, either directly in a merger or in a looser association, I would not wish to stand in their way. But I do not intend to put any pressure upon them either way.
This question of joining the weak to the strong is very relevant. When we think that Upper Clyde has had £20.2 million of public money and Lower Clyde has had a very much smaller sum in loans, which it will eventually have to pay back in the main, we can see that if the two had been joined together at the beginning the sum which might have had to be advanced over the years of the right hon. Gentleman's stewardship might have been very much greater even than the £20.2 million. The argument that joining a weak company to a strong company results in a strong company just because of the economies of scale and the power of size may be very wrong, and it is one that I reject.
The future of the board is, therefore. that it will end, and that it is available for its loans and grants which it still possesses to shipyards for the next nine months up to the end of this year. In due course my right hon. Friend will spell out the policy that we shall have towards the industry as a whole. I have gone so far as to say that I would be surprised if it contained any provisions for pressure or forcing amalgamations of any sort. Indeed, my experience of trying to help the tangled difficulties which have beset Clyde shipbuilding ever since I have had any responsibility for it makes me feel that this must be right.
I will say a word or two about Yarrow Shipbuilders, because the hon. Gentleman specifically referred to it. First, the loan which the Ministry of Defence made to Yarrow was in no sense to help the separation of Yarrow from Upper Clyde, nor in any sense to help Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. The truth of the matter was that Yarrow ran into grave financial difficulties, or perhaps I should say that Yarrow faced grave financial difficulties in the future, and it would probably have been unable to continue trading unless it had been assured of credit to tide it over that difficult year or two ahead, when its cash flow became critical to its being able to continue to trade.
In those circumstances it was agreed by my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Defence that, as a client, he would extend a loan to Yarrow, because he believed that it was important from the point of view of national defence not only that we got the ships now building at Yarrow but also that the capability

of the yard to build naval ships in the future should be retained in this country. It was a very similar development to the action of the shipowners who had ships building at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, who increased the prices of their ships voluntarily to save Upper Clyde from similar difficulties. It had a similar cash flow problem. The two operations can be taken as very similar, in that the clients of both yards found it in their interests to help the yards out of their financial troubles when they were faced with liquidity problems.
In fact, I do not think that any money has been drawn yet by Yarrow, nor do I think that it is likely to be drawn all at once. It may not be drawn—any of it —for several months more, until the cash flow problem actually hits the yard. Therefore, it does not appear in the present Estimates, and it will be on the Defence Department Estimate in the financial year following this if any money is drawn by Yarrow. The terms for this loan are not yet fully agreed. It is for a maximum of £41 million, although we hope very much that the full amount will never be drawn. The terms of repayment have not been settled, nor has any money be drawn. It is more in the nature of a stand-by credit should it be needed by Yarrow.
No public money was given to Yarrow by my Department, nor was any public money given to Upper Clyde Shipbuilders on this occasion. It is not our intention to give any in future. As my right hon. Friend said the other day at Question Time, it will be for both yards and their management and those who work in them to ensure that they are viable. It is not enough to say, "These yards are in difficulty financially. Therefor, there must be grants or money from the Government in order to make sure they survive." There is a duty on those who work in them to make sure that they survive, and we want it to be made extremely clear that the situation is critical—it is perhaps true to say that it is fairly critical in all three of the main Clyde yards—and that a great degree of effort and co-operation will be needed from all those who work in them to make sure they have a strong and viable future.
It is depressing that Barclay Curle has been on strike and that two U.C.S. ships


have been locked up in the dry dock there and have not been available to the owners who otherwise would have been able to take delivery of them. It is depressing that the Lower Clyde boilermakers are still on strike, having rejected a 12.9 per cent. increase in pay, and that ships are being delayed there and are not getting further towards completion.
Events of that sort do not help the reputation of the Clyde yards and make it not more but rather less certain that they will be viable.

Mr. Douglas: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the productivity problem which results from stoppages, but I think he will agree that it must be seen against the overall picture of regional problems and regional policy. The Government have created considerable uncertainty and unrest. I would deprecate anything done either by workers or by management to undermine the long-term viability, but the Government have a responsibility to create good industrial relations, and they have manifestly not discharged that responsibility.

Mr. Ridley: But regional policy does not excuse non-commercial behaviour by men or management which leads to further collapse and unemployment. We are not in the business of saying that just because an enterprise fails to be commercial but is in a region it is assured a future. The biggest contribution which can be made to regional policy is that concerns which find themselves in these difficult areas, where the Government have greatest sympathy about bringing in new employment, should make as big a contribution to regional policy as the Government or anyone else by ensuring that there is a high reputation and satisfactory record of productivity and profit-making in these concerns, because then they can expand and make a big contribution to future employment in the region.

Mr. Benn: If the Government do not wish to intervene in industry, why has the hon. Gentleman picked three shipbuilding companies, said that their position is critical—which is bound to affect confidence, and that the position is likely to get worse—and underlined the fact that, because of current difficulties with

industrial relations, and so on, no help will be made available? Does he regard it as his job, while doing nothing, to go round expressing the Government's view about the viability of firms whose survival has a great rôle to play in maintaining employment? Is not this a unprecedented act? Can the hon. Gentleman recall any occasion when a Minister has commented on the viability of a private company which he has no intention of helping?

Mr. Ridley: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the Upper Clyde Yard and Yarrow have had discussions with the Government and have had to get more money from their clients to put them back on a viable basis. That is what I was referring to. The Lower Clyde Yard has issued a circular to all those who work for it. explaining its financial situation. I have seen it. It is to be seen by anyone who wishes to look at it. The company is making an appeal for the end of the strike because it is essential for its future that there should be a resumption of work. That is common knowledge. I have done nothing to damage that position I have merely made it clear that we believe that these firms have to work out their own future. For this I wish them all good luck and complete success, because their market is fine, their order books are long and their opportunities very great. I believe that there is no reason why the Clyde should not be employing twice as many people in shipbuilding at some future date. I hope it will. I am certain that, with the sort of attitude which the hon. Gentleman has brought to the debate and the determination of all concerned, the shipbuilding industry on the Clyde can have a very prosperous future.

NATIONAL EXHIBITION CENTRE

1.26 a.m.

Mr. Greville Janner: I wish to speak about the £70,000 grant which is being made, for the very first time, in respect of a National Exhibition Centre. I want to ask four questions. Where is the Centre to be established? What will it cost? Who will operate it? What aspects of both


visible and invisible exports is it expected will be covered within that centre?
A great battle about the location of the Centre has raged between London and the Provinces, particularly Birmingham. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to indicate that the Centre will be established in Birmingham and that the Midlands will thus have a boost to its economy and its interests. This would be of especial value at this time, when the engineering and light engineering industries, which have contributed so much to our exports, are hitting the doldrums and when for the first time in Leicester, for example, there are redundancies which indicate that the end of the current prosperity may, alas, be in sight. Anything that can be done to stimulate employment in this area, and export production in particular, would be more than welcome, and I trust that the Centre will be established in the Midlands. If it cannot be in Leicester, then let it be in Birmingham.
Secondly, the sum of £70,000, while in one respect a sum which to many of us is a fortune, is little to a Centre which may cost millions of £s. How much is the Centre itself expected to cost, and what is to be the contribution towards the general cost?
Thirdly, who will operate it? The grant is to be made to the National Exhibition Centre Ltd., a limited liability company. We should know a little about this company before we invest such a substantial sum in it. In particular, who is running it and on what basis?
Fourthly, what aspects of exports will be covered? I would like to deal briefly with one aspect of exports only, and that is the invisible exports and insurance, 95 per cent. of which comes through companies which are members of the British Insurance Association. Is it to be taken that the association will be actively associated with the National Exhibition Centre, and, if so, on what basis? The association is a highly reputable body, and today we heard the excellent news that it is proposing to accept its responsibilities, to some extent at least, arising out of the crash of the Vehicle and General Insurance Company, which was one of its members.
If this association is to take an active part in the Centre, I hope that it will

be understood that it must be able to hold up its head in the world at large and show that it is prepared to shoulder its responsibilities. In the wide sense this means its responsibilities where there is a vast claim by foreign companies; in the small but important sense it means that it can, and will meet claims incurred by members, people such as Mr. Terence Burke, a constituent of the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), whose father lives in my constituency. I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Member, who has worked with me on this matter so that this man may get his money.
Another is James Seddon, a journalist ordered to pay £44,000; more than half of the total grant to the Centre of £70,000. It would have taken Mr. Seddon some 200 years to pay that sum at £5 a week. It is important that apparently the association is to meet that obligation.
I hope that the Minister will indicate that the association will also go some way at least, before heading into the export world from the Centre, to meet the loss of some 800,000 ordinary people who have lost their premiums through the collapse of the Vehicle and General Insurance Company and that it is not correct that, on the contrary, the liquidator of that company is to seek the payment of premiums for 1971 from people who will get no benefit at all from such payments. Before public money is placed in the hands of the association, it is right to ask it to answer these questions: first what the 800.000 premium payers to Vehicle and General are to recover; second, what will be done about third party claims which do not involve physical injury; third, whether the premiums are to be claimed on behalf of the liquidator from people who will obtain no value from such payments.
It is vital that the companies at the Centre should have high repute in the world, and for this purpose it is important that when a company such as Vehicle and General has been accepted as a member of the British Insurance Association and given the cloak not only of its high respectability but also of the stability of its member companies the association should bear its moral responsibilities in that regard. The Centre itself is to be a combination of private industry and,


through this Vote, public support and that is right, because we are all anxious that exports should flourish and that the country should pay its way in the world at large. The B.I.A. decision shows the influence of the combination of back bench opinion in this House and of the power of the Press, and that is a great encouragement to all of us.
We all wish good fortune to the Centre. We hope that the balance of payments situation, which is so good today, will continue to be excellent and that the Centre itself will make a great contribution in the Midlands and throughout the country to the prosperity of our industry.

1.33 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Anthony Grant): I will first deal with the question of insurance, mentioned by the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner). I am glad that the House gave him permission to speak again in the debate, because I acknowledge the great interest which he has shown, on the Order Paper and in the House, in insurance in general and Vehicle and General in particular.
I join with him in expressing pleasure on behalf of the Government that the British Insurance Association has announced today that it has found itself able to establish a special fund to assist passengers who have been injured in traffic accidents when the driver responsible was entitled to indemnity under a motor insurance policy issued in the United Kingdom by the Vehicle and General Insurance Company or any of its subsidiaries which have gone into liquidation.
The hon. Member himself will acknowledge, equally, that, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in the House on 10th March that he was having discussions with the British Insurance Association on means by which it could contribute towards giving greater confidence to the members of the public who take out policies of motor insurance. The announcement today is clearly one result of those discussions, and we are very pleased to hear it. Full details have yet to be worked out, but full details of the scheme will be made available

shortly and will be provided to solicitors through the Law Societies of England and Scotland.
However, I would not imagine that exhibiting insurance would form a particularly major part of the National Exbition Centre. Certainly it should be pointed out that Vehicle and General's overseas business was a remarkably small proportion of its activities, but there is nothing to stop the insurance companies, if they so wish, from exhibiting. However, I cannot say that insurance companies have been the most vivid exhibitors at the many exhibitions which I have visited in the last few months in various parts of the world.
The rôle of exhibitions and trade fairs has become increasingly important as a feature of international marketing activity. British exporters have been deprived of this essential marketing tool for too long. There has long been recognition by both Government and industry of the need for modern exhibition facilities in the United Kingdom, particularly as exhibition centres were being developed in other European countries, thus placing our exporters at a disadvantage with their major overseas competitors.
For over a quarter of a century there was abortive discussion to produce a viable scheme for a London development. In May, 1969, the Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry submitted to the Department a proposal to site the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham. The cost of this scheme was estimated at £11·5 million, and the proposed methods of financing were by a Government grant of £1·5 million, £3 million from the Birmingham City Council, and the balance by institutional funding. At last there was a proposal for a national exhibition centre which offered every prospect of being a viable development within an acceptable time scale.
On 28th January, 1970, the previous Administration announced their decision to offer financial support—a grant of £1·5 million—to the Birmingham scheme, subject to planning procedures and financial and development discussions.
When this Government assumed office they reconsidered the undertaking given


to Birmingham in the light of the substantial progress made by that time by Birmingham and in the light of further representations made by the Greater London Council to the Government. On 13th July, 1970, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, as he then was, announced the decision to reaffirm support for the Birmingham scheme. The G.L.C. was informed of the decision.
The hon. Member inquired how the Centre would be run. The answer is that the National Exhibition Centre Ltd. has been set up. Further details have yet to be worked out, but this company will be fully representative of all parties concerned—the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Birmingham City Council—and it will, I imagine, if the scheme goes through, operate in the usual way in which these centres are run elsewhere in the world; namely, by letting out space to exhibition companies which themselves deal with their own client manufacturers.
I would expect that the exhibits would be primarily manufacturing goods, if the usual pattern is followed. This will be a matter for the individual companies to decide when the time comes.
Since then, Birmingham has made substantial progress in its plans. The Government have approved a grant of £70,000—part of the £.1·5 million—to the cost of administrative expenses and professional studies. Birmingham's application for planning permission is the subject of a local public inquiry expected to start on 2nd June, 1971. The result will not become known until probably September, 1971. If planning clearance is given to Birmingham, it will immediately be able to commence final construction work.
I wish to pay tribute to the energy and work of Mr. Frank Cole of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, who has been very much in charge of this project, and all his colleagues. I wish them every success if the planning problems are overcome. There is nothing whatever to stop London pursuing a scheme which does not involve public money if it also can overcome the planning problems. I think it will be a great satisfaction to industry and commerce in this country when a

national exhibition centre is finally achieved and made viable.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Committee this day.

BRITISH OVERSEAS AIRWAYS CORPORATION

1.41 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Anthony Grant): I beg to move,
That the British Overseas Airways Corporation (Government Investment) Order 1971, a draft of which was laid before this House on 4th March, be approved.
The purpose of this Order is to allow the continuation beyond 31st March, 1971, of the provisions in the Air Corporations Act, 1967, for the investment of non-redeemable capital, which has come to be known as public dividend capital, in B.O.A.C. The essence of public dividend capital, apart from being non-redeemable, is that it is remunerated by annual dividends payable out of profits and reserves, in contrast to the fixed interest payable on loan capital, which forms the capital finance of most nationalised industries. Dividends, unlike fixed interest, are variable and can reflect each year's trading results in the same way as dividends on equity capital in the private sector.
Public dividend capital was introduced for B.O.A.C. in the Air Corporations Act, 1966, on an experimental basis for five years from April, 1965; so the Act provides for the arrangements to lapse on 31st March, 1971, unless extended by Order for a further period or permanently. The draft Order now before this House extends the arrangements for a further five years until 31st March, 1976.
I think hon. Members will agree that the experiment has been successful so far. The Government have received £44¼ million by way of dividends—far more than they would have received in interest on a corresponding amount of loan capital. B.O.A.C. is keen to retain public dividend capital because it puts its capital structure broadly in line with that of its main competitors, most of whom have a


proportion of equity, and so enables the Corporation's financial performance to be more readily and directly related to theirs.
The Government have, therefore, decided to extend the arrangements for a further period until financial responsibility for both B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. is taken over by the proposed Airways Board.
I commend this Order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the British Overseas Airways Corporation (Government Investment) Order 1971, a draft of which was laid before this House on 4th March, be approved.

ANTI-DUMPING DUTY (No. 2) ORDER

Resolved,
That the Anti-Dumping Duty (No. 2) Order 1971 (S.I. 1971, No. 306), dated 26th February, 1971, a copy of which was laid before this House on 26th February, be approved.—[Mr. Anthony Grant]

WORKS OF ART (EXPORT)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Eyre.]

1.43 a.m.

Mr. Ernie Money: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the serious and urgent question of the loss to this country by the continuing exporting of major works of art. We are fortunate in this country to have inherited through the foresight and wisdom of our forefathers a rich patrimony in pictures and other objects and both in spiritual and material terms and also in terms of increasing importance to the tourist industry to our economic well-being these are among our most precious possessions. Nevertheless they are becoming increasingly and seriously put at risk through the drain which is taking place on these resources.
Britain came late to the realisation of the importance of protective legislation for her treasures. In Italy legislation was introduced as long ago as 1802, in Austria in 1818, in Greece in 1834, in France in 1887 and in Germany in 1919. In our case protective legislation came in the curiously named Import, Export and Cus

toms Powers (Defence) Act of 1939 as a result of the need not to protect works of art as such but to protect British capital goods going abroad during the war. It was not until 1952 that the committee that sat under the chairmanship of Lord Waverley resulted in the appointment of the Reviewing Committee of Works of Art which is the basis of the present system.
The powers which were given to the committee were to advise the Government on principles governing the control of the export of works of art and antiques, to consider cases where the refusal of export licences was suggested on grounds of national importance, to advise in cases where a special Exchequer grant was needed towards the purchase of an object which would otherwise be exported, and to supervise the general operation of the export control system.
Again as a result of the recommendations of the Waverley Committee, certain principles were adopted for the way in which that system was to be applied. Three questions were left to the Reviewing Committee—that it should consider, in any specific case which was referred to it, first, whether the object was so closely associated with our history and national life that its departure would be a misfortune; secondly, whether it was an object of outstanding aesthetic importance; and, thirdly, whether it was an object of outstanding importance to the study of some particular branch of art, learning or history.
But against all of those criteria it was necessary for the money to be forthcoming for national collections so that they would be in a position, where a stop was placed on any particular work, to be able to make an offer on behalf of the nation.
In more recent years the situation has become graver as a result, first, of monetary inflation, secondly, of the increase in prices realised both at sale rooms and in private negotiations for works of art —and these are to be seen only too clearly in for instance The Times-Sotheby index, which has been published regularly—and thirdly, of the increasing pressure which has grown up as a result of the cost in many cases on owners of maintaining country houses in which collections of so many of these works were placed.
The situation was highlighted earlier this year by the sale of the Velasquez picture of Juan de Pareja for a record sum of £2,310,000. The importance of that situation, and the fact that the picture subsequently went to America, is not only that this was a work of major importance, but, further, that the flow—I use the word advisedly—of works which have come into the sale rooms as a result of that price have not only released individual works which are of great significance to our national heritage but have placed at risk almost every major work which is still in private hands, many of which, I would stress, are pictures in particular which have been on loan to public institutions for very many years.
The two cases which have caused the greatest concern over the last few months have, of course, been the fact—and I must say no more than the fact that it has now gone to Christies—that the Harewood "Diana and Actaeon", one of the greatest Titians, a work of major quality and importance, is now at serious risk of leaving the country, and the situation which developed yesterday with regard to the Domenichino, "Adoration of the Shepherds", from the Dulwich Gallery. If I have time I shall return to the question of the Domenichino, because it seems to produce many specific problems which highlight the situation with regard to pictures in private hands, and semipublic hands.
I hope that the Minister will agree that a gallery like the Dulwich Gallery, which has been open to the public since the beginning of the 19th century, must be considered as part of our historic pattern. What, at this stage, should be most worrying to those concerned with our national collections is that it is against a background of this continual increase in prices, continued monetary inflation and economic difficulty that galleries are faced not only with the question of their normal acquisition policy but also with trying to preserve in this country pictures which the public at any rate have every right to count on as being part of their normal birthright.
I want briefly to quote the relevant figures for grants in aid. Those concerned have gladly accepted the benefits

that came from the quinquennial system, but I would ask the Minister—who has shown such a ready sympathy for the arts—to bear in mind the effect of these grants in terms of monetary inflation. The National Gallery for each of the five years beginning 1970–71 has only £480,000, highlighted against the prices of the kind of picture that the Gallery may be expected to acquire; the Victoria and Albert has £139,000 and £150,000 for its local museums fund; the National Portrait Gallery, £48,000; the Tate Gallery £265,000; the National Maritime Museum, £25,000; the London Museum, a mere £8,000; and the British Museum, for all its purposes, £632,000. I must stress that in each case the grant includes agents' fees and commissions. This highlights the difficulties facing any picture gallery that has to follow a system of acquisition of major works of art.
I want to stress one further figure—the figure for the National Galleries of Scotland, which is £80,000. If it is correct—as reported in the Press—that the Domenichino picture has gone to Scotland for £100,000 it means that not only the whole of one year's grant but a substantial part of the next year's has been swallowed up by obtaining one major picture.
This is not a new question; it has been repeated over and over again in almost every one of 16 reports of the Reviewing Committee. As long ago as its Third Report, in 1956, the distinguished Committee said:
We appreciate the economic background against which these increases in the grants must be judged, and we welcome the Financial Secretary's assurance, given to the House of Commons on 19th March, 1956, that having regard to the recommendations in our last report and to those of the National Gallery Trustees he proposes to undertake a thorough review of the position against the time when the economic situation improves.
—none the less, prices have gone up and inflation has gone on—
The present level of purchase grants is utterly inadequate to satisfy this requirement, with the result that purchases have continued to be made at the last possible moment, and at prices often higher than would in general need to be paid if galleries were in a position to negotiate with the owner at an earlier stage. The inadequacy of the purchase grants is thus two fold in its effect. It produces a false economy, and it dissipates the artistic heritage of the nation. We can only recommend again


in the strongest terms that a thorough review of the level of purchase grants-in-aid, to bring them into line with current values and with the current requirements of our national collections, should be regarded as a matter of the first importance and urgency.
That was in 1956, and 10 years later the report of the trustees of the National Gallery was in these terms:
The repeated requests of the Reviewing Committee for a fund to be created which would enable some of their recommendations against export to become effective have been refused on grounds which are to be found in HANSARD, 1 August 1966, col. 42. The automatic replenishment of such a fund, which the Committee has also requested, would indeed involve a continuous expense over which Parliament had no control. However, when the National Gallery, for instance, is promised a purchase grant of £200,000 for a quinquennium, Parliament has a very limited control over this expenditure; and if a fixed but more adequate sum were available for a quinquennium to the Reviewing Committee, it would only be in a similar position, but it would have real, instead of merely nominal, power to achieve results in the field to which it is appointed. Above all, the number of works of art to be saved from among those remaining would depend less upon the momentary state of the country's finances and more upon their lasting value to the community.
The same report says:
At this last hour, when the country which sixty years ago was the richest of the world in its private collections has seen so many of these dispersed for export and the price of old pictures is consequently rising at an ever-increasing rate, the export control regulations are inevitably becoming the subject of urgent discussions. Yet many of the disputants seem to be completely unaware either of the character of the control or of the world situation in which it is attempting to operate.
The Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries says in its Eighth Report for the period 1965–69:
The Reviewing Committee recommended some years ago that a fund should be placed at their disposal for the speedly acquisition. under threat of export, of such important items as they considered should not be allowed to leave the country; and they have since been seeking a form in which their recommendation could be accepted without contravening any of H.M.G.'s basic financial principles. They have now recommended that the Committee should itself have a purchase grant of £250,000 a year, like any individual institution, except that they do not insist that it should be carried over from year to year.
With respect, I say that with prices at their present and increasing level such a sum would be inadequate:
This would enable them to intervene urgently in the purchase of works of art

for which the funds cannot be provided by an individual institution. The urgency in cases brought to the Committee, where a sale has normally been finalised subject only to the export licence, is often greater than in cases where private negotiations are taking place between the institution concerned and the owner; and the case for special financial arrangements for the Committee appears to us a good one. We, therefore, support this recommendation.
As the law stands, there is pitifully little outside the existing purchase grants to meet an emergency of this kind on behalf of any of the major institutions. I pay tribute to the National Art Collection Fund, which in its history of 50 years has done much to preserve the nation's masterpieces, yet that fund is dependent entirely on individual subscriptions. From time to time, parliamentary contributions or appropriations have to be called upon. Some museums have their Friends, and there are a few private foundations like the Pilgrim Trust which can be called upon on occasion to help out, but if the number of occasions for which help is needed are to increase at the present rate there will be little in the "kitty" to meet the kind of crises being faced.
I would agree completely that steps such as export taxes or absolute prohibitions, which have done so much harm in France and Italy, respectively are not acceptable. I ask the Minister to consider the possibility either of a national lottery benefiting this work or a hire-purchase scheme on the system recommended by which payments could be made over the years and so would not take the whole of an annual grant under the quinquennial system.
Most important of all, perhaps, is the situation with regard to tax relief. Although it is obvious that the Minister cannot say anything about what his right hon. Friend will say next week, one hopes that some real weight will have been placed on the fact that an Early Day Motion asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider this system has been signed by more than 100 hon. Members.
Most important is the question of the adequacy of the grant and the contingency funds that should be available to meet crises which cannot be controlled in any way. Here I stress the words used in The Times in its leading article on the


Harewood Titian on 20th February, when it said:
In each generation we are trustees for our descendants and we must be prepared to anticipate the price that they may be willing to pay.
We realise how sympathetic the Minister is to this subject. We hope that he can give us some assurance that something will be done now before it is too late.

2.1 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William van Straubenzee): My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) has made a powerful case, and the House acknowledges his deep and expert knowledge of these matters. I will do my best in the limited time available to answer him as fully as I can.
Dealing first with the point my hon. Friend raised about the Domenichino, one of the advantages of sitting at Two o'clock in the morning is that it is possible to read today's papers. My hon. Friend will know that this is possible in another part of this building, and he will find in today's papers that his supposition that the picture would be purchased by the National Gallery of Scotland is correct. I am sure that he will share the widespread pleasure that the picture is to remain in the United Kingdom.
What my hon. Friend has not had an opportunity of knowing—and this is no criticism of him—is that in answering a Question yesterday, but still in this Sitting, the Secretary of State for Scotland said that an amount of £105,000 is being made available, and an advance of this sum will be made for the contingent fund in the first instance. Parliamentary approval will be sought in due course.
It is for my right hon. Friend to deal with the details, but I may tell my hon. Friend that his anxieties as to the way in which the purchase grants for the National Gallery of Scotland might be absorbed in this one matter are, happily, not well-founded. The Secretary of State for Scotland can explain the circumstances in greater detail if my hon. Friend desires.
The burden of my hon. Friend's speech was much wider than that, although I thought he would be happy to have that specific point dealt with. He raised the

whole question of the way in which we can make funds available to retain certain great works of art which we all appreciate and enjoy. I am grateful to him for reminding us of the basis upon which we work, the recommendation of Lord Waverley's Committee on the Export of Works of Art, beginning in 1952. He set out criteria upon which the Committee worked, so it is not necessary for me to repeat them.
What is our experience of working the scheme? The criteria my hon. Friend set out have stood the test of time. Nothing my hon. Friend has said would contest that. The criteria seem to be right. No serious case can be made out for adding to the criteria, though I recognise there will always be those who cannot bear to see any treasure ever leave this country for any reason at all. I appreciate that sort of attitude, but I feel that the criteria on which we work are right.
The problem has proved to be one of resources and of priorities, as my hon. Friend has rightly said. I do not need to say to my hon. Friend, though I would say to well wishers outside, that money found for the purchase of works of art must be taken from the total resources for the arts. I believe that there are wide misconceptions even among those who are prepared to accept that the arts cannot escape from the financial limitations which impose constraints upon all of us. It has been argued that, because the Exchequer recovers a considerable part of the cost of a work of art from taxation, there should be a more liberal supply of funds for the purchase of such works for national institutions. But this argument conveniently ignores the fact that these gains accrue to the Exchequer in any case. It is part of the inevitable process by which Government is financed and by which resources are found for the care of national collections. If the Exchequer is to find any additional capital sum, it must take the money from somewhere else.
The scale of what we are talking about is not always appreciated. My noble Friend the Paymaster-General spoke about this matter with his customary skill in another place on 16th December, 1970, and I would remind the House of what he said when considering the situation at the National Gallery:
For the price of a Velasquez…the National Gallery could air-condition all its


galleries which are not now air-conditioned—that would cost about £350,000—and it could build its new wing, the plans of which your Lordships' may recently have seen. That would give it an increase of 25 per cent. in gallery space for its permanent collection with ten large, new air-conditioned galleries. It would also give it almost exactly the same amount of space for its reserve collection, which could then be shown to the public. After all that, it would still have £750,000 in hand."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 16th December, 1970; Vol. 313, c. 1397.]
I invite my hon. Friend and all wellwishers—among whom I hope I can include myself—to contemplate the scale of what we are now talking about. It is not an easy matter since the priority of resources in art expenditure is very difficult to assess. It is the view of the Government that the greatest need of our museums and galleries is to enable them to show to the best modern standards the collections which they possess. My hon. Friend will put this at the top of his priority list. In any form of expenditure, one must have an order of priority.

Mr. Money: One of the things that most concern us is that, apart from the work that has gone to Scotland—and it might, of course, have gone to America —there are major works at Dulwich by Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Cuyp and other artists all of which in future may be at risk when such a gallery is in financial trouble. This is what I am asking my hon. Friend to bear in mind.

Mr. van Straubenzee: That is a new point, but I shall try to deal with it in the short time left to me. To dispose of a capital asset of that nature, it was necessary for the trustees of the gallery, under the Charities Act 1960, to obtain the consent of the Secretary of State for Education and Science acting in her capacity as Charity Commissioner, and my right hon. Friend gave her consent in the special circumstances of that particular sale. This is the safeguard which encompasses the trustees in a matter of that nature. But my hon. Friend has given a good illustration.
My hon. Friend will know, from the published letters of Lord Shawcross, that the essential difficulty facing the trustees

in that case was not only that they were in deficit in income but that they did not have the necessary wherewithal even adequately to maintain the security of their collection. That was the justification which eventually convinced my right hon. Friend that it was proper for her to exercise her charitable jurisdiction to enable a capital sum of £100,000 to be invested, which has to be retained, and, therefore, will lead to the better showing of the collection.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter. I hope that I have dispelled some of his greater anxieties. I am simply saying, to revert to the main point, that we cannot adequately improve the showing of the collections if all our additional resources, or a substantial proportion of them, go on purchases. It is a matter of priority.
My hon. Friend referred to the purchase grants. I have not time to go into the details, but I have them here. However, I take one figure which my hon. Friend mentioned—the 1970–71 figure for the National Gallery at £480,000. In a perfect world I, too, would like that to be a bigger sum but I am entitled to remind my hon. Friend that the year before it was £230,000. Down the complete list he will find that there is a marked increase in the capital sums which are available to the nation.
It is clear that I have come very close to the end of my time. I shall certainly make sure that my noble Friend is aware of my hon. Friend's idea about a national lottery, what he called a hire-purchase scheme, and, of course, about the concept of tax relief—and my hon. Friend will remember that it was my noble Friend rather than any other single person who was responsible for floating that idea in the first place. While both of us are mum at this time of the year, I am sure that he has not changed his mind because he is now in Government.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past Two o'clock a.m.